Review: Macphun Noiseless 2016

A comparison with Lightroom/Photoshop only makes sense if you explain which tools you used for that and show the results. A “slightly better result” doesn't say much.

You are absolutely right Michelle! All that Adobe software is just way too complicated! I'll take a simple little app with at most one slider. Much cheaper too! Where can I download this little thing?

Donald Willemsen wrote on Tuesday 9 January 2018 at 10:59  | reply

Michelle, there are different types of noise. Did you also take that into account in the comparison?

Donald Willemsen wrote on Tuesday 9 January 2018 at 11:19  | reply

@Michelle, thanks for your response.

For luminance noise, Photoshop is fine, but you do indeed have to know what you're doing. But doesn't that apply to everything?

For both types of noise, you can get good results in Photoshop's raw converter and in Lightroom's editing section. Luminance noise (noise caused by contrast in light and dark pixels) and color noise (contrast in the colors of the pixels) can be edited very easily across the entire image in the raw converter by going to "details" and moving the noise reduction sliders there. With noise reduction, the hard contrasts in pixels are reduced. With "luminance", by making dark tones lighter and lighter tones darker, the more you do, the less detail remains in your photo because the edges fade as a result, while with the sharpening tool the opposite happens. You can preserve some detail by adjusting luminance detail, then the contrast lines in your image are looked at intelligently instead of just looking at individual pixels. In portraits and photos with lots of small details, it's better not to bring luminance noise beyond 30, that really is an absolute maximum. With an image with large areas and little detail (for example architecture), you can reduce it further. For "color noise", basically the same applies, only then it looks at irregularities in color and brings them closer together. This effect causes less detail loss because different parts of your photo almost never have the same color. However, you still have to be careful with this, sometimes the photo can become a bit gray. If you want to reduce noise a bit more precisely, you can use the blur tool for that, the smaller your pointer, the more detail is preserved in your photo (as long as you keep drawing in a targeted way) and sometimes the movement you make also makes a difference. If you draw along with the lines you want to keep sharp, they stay tighter. if you go across them, it blurs a bit more.

Of course, as with everything in Photoshop. There are also other ways to achieve the same result. And maybe there are even better ways. But that's how I do it and I'm quite happy with it. I could also tell you more about the other options, but it's not my article.