Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2006/08/27
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Lew: [I'm reposting this with the correct subject tag, so that we have only one discussion going on this subject. Sorry.] Thanks. What's the significance of applying/not applying noise reduction? What would have happened if you had warmed up the skin tone of the woman sitting on the sofa? Noise reduction is applied using Photoshop plugins such as Noise Ninja or NeatImage, which reduce the "grain" somewhat -- if you push this too far, you destroy detail. It's a matter of taste of how much grain you want -- indeed the digital noise of the Ricoh GR-D looks very much like film grain in B&W -- similar in concept to darkroom developing and printing, where you can accentuate of reduce grain by the choice of developer or contrast in printing. For example, in the picture of the woman in the spectacle shop (third picture) I applied a bit of noise reduction because the picture (shot at ISO 800) has a lot of grain, but the version without noise reduction also looks good; as I said: a matter of taste. On the other hand, in the picture of the woman standing with a mannequin in the shop window (fifth pciture), I did not apply any noise reduction because this picture has less small detail, and noise removal made some parts of the photo too smooth, such as the reflection of the mannequin on the left wall of the shop -- again a matter of taste. By "woman sitting on the sofa", do you mean the picture of the woman reading a newspaper or the one of the woman (and man) sleeping at the railway station? In either case the JPG files that you are viewing <http://www.flickr.com/photos/10268776@N00/> are grayscale, so any toning would not show up. But I print using a RIP called ImagePrint which does allow toning -- and, again, the tone you choose is a matter of taste. --Mitch/Bangkok