Solution for high ISO
- Thread starter kiwi86
- Start date
BackdoorArts
Senior Member
Photo evidence would really help. 
BackdoorArts
Senior Member
I did hear from my brother that he felt Version 9 was "unbelievably good" and was probably going to purchase that instead of going Creative Cloud once he leaves his newspaper gig at the end of the summer. He doesn't use that kind of praise lightly, so I'm curious just how good that is, and may download a trial and check it out. I'm pretty invested in Photoshop, but given that I have CS6 and LR5, giving up my CC subscription might not bother me too much.
OK - the chances are, they have made a significant leap in terms of how to retain the low noise in high ISO photos:indecisiveness:... I used to work with the version 8 (to manage my colleague's photos, taken with D5000) and the program impressed me - it's graphical interface is very much straight forward, it is fast and accurate...
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I have not used it but this made me curious since I have "topaz lab" that is plugged-in with Adobe CS5 for any noise reduction and it works very well. I'm not sure if anyone has both and/or worth considering this DXo software.
Well, one reason..... if I'm out in the woods, late at night, and Bigfoot happens to come by..........
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Just tried a simple test with my D800 using a demo version of DXO optics pro 9.
These shots were taken in a fairly dark room just now.
Straight out of camera transferred to my mac using Nikon Transfer 2. Opened NEF files in DXo and then exported as jpgs. The jpgs were 42MB each so I opened each one and saved at lower quality to get the file sizes down to about 4MB.
I have to say I am impressed the noise is barely noticeable even at iso2500.
In fact I am amazed.
Just looked at the raw Nef files again in Nikon Transfer 2 and the noise is very much worse when you see them so I am impressed.
These shots were taken in a fairly dark room just now.
Straight out of camera transferred to my mac using Nikon Transfer 2. Opened NEF files in DXo and then exported as jpgs. The jpgs were 42MB each so I opened each one and saved at lower quality to get the file sizes down to about 4MB.
I have to say I am impressed the noise is barely noticeable even at iso2500.
In fact I am amazed.
Just looked at the raw Nef files again in Nikon Transfer 2 and the noise is very much worse when you see them so I am impressed.
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Thats what the 100% crop shows in my second post. The NEF has just been loaded into DXO on the left and after processing on the right.
I don't have the originals anymore I deleted them to save space.
Yes there is still some noise and certainly a big loss of detail look at the dark red books, but for some purposes it could still be useable.
Not for pictures of Bigfoot at midnight though
What I notice is that as the ISO goes higher, the shadows become progressively noisier. So if thyere is not much DR in the scene it is fine. But if there is a lot of DR then only the brighter scenes come out well, while the darker ones are very noisy. STill it is better than not having the shot. The RAW file itself is quite good.
BackdoorArts
Senior Member
The answer is quite simple - because without it, you'd get no photos.
Example? I got invited to my nephew's School Of Rock show at a local pub. They have live music there all the time, and having been a musician I know that there will at least be some lighting if there's a stage. Boy was I wrong. So, here I was with my D800 and 70-200mm f/4 and to get any shot, even wide open, I'm at ISO 6400-12500 at a minimum, and even here I'm coming in dark. So, 1/2 the shots were at 25K.
Was there noise? Uh-huh. Could I clean it up. Pretty much - you could it was a high ISO shot, but probably not that high. The important thing? I have shots of his concert.
My point is, no one ever goes in planning to shoot at that ISO. But there will be occasions where it's your only real option besides, "Sorry, I couldn't get any pictures".
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Just been playing a bit more with DxO Pro and found that you can select a more advanced noise reduction option called PRIME.
Well this is the first time my 3.5Ghz i7 iMac has been maxed out for 4 minutes solid and the cooling fans came on for the first time since I got it over 6 months ago !
It took 4 minutes to do the noise reduction and save one file as a 2048 x 1366 px jpg.
The results are certainly better than anything I have seen for an iso 25600 shot.
Disclaimer: I have no link with DxO Pro and just decided to give it a try as the OP said it was good. - I agree but it doesn't do miracles.
It is good but really eats up computer power like I haven't seen before in any program.
Well this is the first time my 3.5Ghz i7 iMac has been maxed out for 4 minutes solid and the cooling fans came on for the first time since I got it over 6 months ago !
It took 4 minutes to do the noise reduction and save one file as a 2048 x 1366 px jpg.
The results are certainly better than anything I have seen for an iso 25600 shot.
Disclaimer: I have no link with DxO Pro and just decided to give it a try as the OP said it was good. - I agree but it doesn't do miracles.
It is good but really eats up computer power like I haven't seen before in any program.