Noise Ninja does a number on high ISO noise

A kind reader suggested that Noise Ninja from PictureCode might be a worthwhile product for cutting ISO 400 noise produced by the sensor in the Panasonic LX1 (or Leica DP as I prefer to think of it, once modified with a proper optical viewfinder).

I downloaded the Photoshop CS2 plug-in and gave it a shot. PictureCode has a long listing of profiles created for many different cameras, so I downloaded that also, not really feeling up to a lot of messing about with the product’s myriad sliders, and this is what I got – the Noise Ninja version has the grid pattern as I have yet to buy and register the product:

This is the 400 ISO interior snap taken in RAW mode, best quality. While there are trade offs – look at the loss of detail in the red pin-striped shirt, you can dial in just enough noise reduction to get the color artifacts out – the standard profile might have overdone things a bit. Again, these are the size of 22” x 39” prints, so less noise reduction would be needed in regular sized prints.

Noise Ninja strikes me as a useful adjunct in the toolbox for the occasional image where ISO 400 is used indoors. Remember that the OIS vibration reduction system in the camera is good for two shutter speeds, making your ISO 100 equivalent to ISO 400, so it would be a fairly rare image that needed ISO 400.

More interestingly, Noise Ninja also has profiles for film and scanner combinations, so those plagued with noise in small 35mm negatives now have a useful tool to look to.

Rather cheekily, PictureCode provides a canned profile for the Canon EOS 5D; cheeky as the sensor in that camera has exceptionally low noise properties already.

I’ll take a look at vibration reduction, what Panasonic calls OIS, in Part VI.