Neat Image Pro version 2.6
A few years ago I remember experimenting with Neat Image on
some noisy astronomy film images. The results were mixed with quite a few
artifacts created. I have recently revisited Neat Image and actually
upgraded to the professional version. You can visit the official
Neat Image site for more
complete feature comparisons of the standard and professional versions. If
you use a digital camera in low light situations where you find yourself working
with noisy images, Neat Image has profiles for numerous digital cameras that
should work well in smoothing the image. My experience of late has been
with some CCD images of astronomical objects. Again, my monitor
calibration has led me to revisit the processing of many of my images. I
pushed the dynamic range of some of these to test the capabilities of Neat
Image. The image below is a revisit of the Horsehead and Flame nebula in
monochrome. The key for me in this image is to bring out as much faint
detail as possible without making the image excessively noisy. The first
image is an original enhancement with no smoothing applied. Mouse over the
image to see the final image with Neat Image Pro applied.
Mouse over above image to see the smoothing applied by Neat Image Pro
The settingsI have found most useful for my astronomical CCD images are the
"Retain natural image look" and "Remove only half of noise" and then reduce the
amount of noise reduction anywhere from 30-50%. The interface for Neat
Image Pro is pictured below.
I have also found that you should experiment with the noise sampling area and
see how that impacts the noise reduction. I mostly
select an area that has a representative level of noise with few distinguishing
features. Neat Image Pro is now an integral part of my CCD image
processing work flow. I had previously utilized selective Gaussian
blurring techniques to smooth my images, but Neat Image Pro is much more
effective and efficient. I now process my images to have a fair amount of
noise in the shadows knowing that Neat Image will be capable of smoothing the
image as a final enhancement step.
Here are the images I have reworked with Neat Image Pro.
Rosette Nebula (Halpha) by Jeff Ball
Horsehead and Flame in Halpha by Jeff Ball
Network Nebula by Jeff Ball
M42, M43, and NGC 1977 in HaGB by Jeff Ball