So lately some of my images have been looking grainy (urgh). So what's the best 'noise reduction' software out there? I have heard of Noise Ninja. Is that any good? Any other thoughts?
Thank you for your help!

Noise Ninja is a fabulous plugin for PS. I would definitely recommend it.

I've been so happy (strike that: GIDDY) about Noiseware Professional, found here:
http://www.imagenomic.com/purchase.aspx

free demo download I believe for anyone interested in giving it a try;

note: it's from the co. that makes "PORTRAITURE" which other OSP folk have raved about...would love hearing from someone who owns both, but that's prob. another thread; another day

good luck!

I have both ~~~~~ they are AMAZING!!!!!! One of the best purchases I have made.

Thank you everyone for your replies!
Kristie... since you have both... if you only could have one, which would you choose? Do they both do the same thing? One is quite less than the other. Could I get by w/ that one?
Thanks!
kate

ahhhhhh----don't make me choose!!!!!!! Noiseware takes care of minimizing the noise- and does an amazing job at it too, I might add!!!
Portraiture is a dream! It smooths skin imperfections and is just amazing also! I am sure someone else could explain it better, but either way, I really don't think I could choose! I truly, 100% feel like they are worth every single penny!

No doubt! I am one of the original ravers too.

Kate, you can definitely get by with just the noise one (but make sure you get the professional version, it is only like $69) but...the portraiture one does things that the noise one can't (sometimes I use both on the same image) that is why it is a lot more (about $160 I think). To me for a little over $200, these are essential tools, ESPECIALLY if you are shooting with anything less than a 5D or the Mark III. Works great on those cameras too when using a really high ISO.

This is no secret, I have brought it up a couple of times, and like I said before Great investment!

Try it on a tough image, and you will be sold.

Here is a sample, before and after, using the combination of the two. I did a few other things too but, it shows the power of the two programs. Look at her arm, and chest on the right of the frame, I did nothing at all to them. True Magic!

If you shoot Nikon, Capture NX does a pretty good job and it does it automatically.

Just get a Mark III and forget about noise all together!

Portraiture looks awesome. Gonna check it out.

The Mark III... yeah, I wish! That or the 5D will be the next purchase... whenever that is. So the mark3 doesn't have much problem w/ noise, eh?Okay, so I am going to ask a super dumb question... so here is a recent picture... and it's 'grainy'. What did I do wrong? What should have I done to make the image 'crisp' (to begin with... not w/ photoshop afterwards)?One image is the original and one is obviously zoomed in to see the 'grain'...the image was taken at:ISO 400f/8 @ 1/160Click to view attachmentClick to view attachmentThank you for your help oh I misunderstood. I thought you had both the noiseware and noise ninja. I was wanting you to tell your favorite between those two. Sorry... I misunderstood. Thanks for the reply though. I really need to check it out!

I have Noise Ninja and it would do a pretty good job cleaning that up... but you must have pushed that image some in post, yes? I can't imagine having that much noise unless you're bumping the exposure more than a stop. ??

Here is a quick NN pass on your image. I didn't spent time tweaking, just ran the autoprofile and saved it... give you a general idea though.

~Bill

ETA: the remaining level of noise would not be very visible in print, if you smoothed more it would lose detail and start to look 'plastic', some people like that, but not me...

thanks for your reply.
so yeah, I bought noise ninja and it helped it out quite a bit. well it at least looks better than the original. however, what did i do wrong to begin with to make it that grainy? should it have been a different ISO or f-stop... or what? it just seems like lately a lot of my pictures look grainy like that. urgh. any thoughts??? (anyone's input would be greatly appreciated )
(oh and the image was shot in RAW. is it better to try to fix up the raw image?)

Getting the exposure right in the camera will help, no matter what ISO you're at. With Nikon anything over ISO 400 will look grainy even when exposed right, even with a Canon 5D anything over 800 will look at least a little grainy when viewed at 100%. Watch your histogram on the LCD while you're shooting and get as bright of an exposure as possible without blowing out highlights (sometimes you have to let the highlights blow in order to get your subject properly exposed). The camera meter will not always get this right, it's up to you to override it when necessary.

Practice, practice. :-)

I don't necessarily think that anything over ISO 400 for Nikon will look grainy - I've pushed higher with good results.

On your q, though, Noise Ninja is incredibly effective and powerful and if you want to get rid of noise, it's a terrific product.

Thanks for reference to Portraiture. I didn't know about it till you mentioned it. I played with it a bit, and then I purchased it, and I LOVE it!!!! Thanks!

You're welcome Jim, and Kate.

ive had noiseware pro for a while and last year switched over to noise ninja, which is awesome. i like the autoprofiling feature in nn and i also like that you can profile your camera/iso combinations and the software can be set to read your exif and remove the noise at the proper level based upon each image and the image settings. noise ninja also has some usm sharpening that can be built into the pass if you like it, but i wax all of that until all the other ps work is done. i combine nn with digital airbrush pro and a little diffuse glow to create some very nice skin healing effects with very little single image tinkering.

I LOVE me some Noise Ninja!!!
I got the plugin vs. the standalone program...

noiseware rocks my socks off!!!!!

I love Noise Ninja!