Noise Reduction

As you know I have been scanning 35mm slides from our big family trip in 1987. Apparently it is pretty common to see a lot of noise in scanned slides and negatives. I knew that I needed to invest in some noise reduction software to help clean this up, and I can also use it when I have to shoot at a high ISO with my digital camera. I chose Neat Image mainly because they had a free trial, that I could use, this allowed me to see if I liked the results. It also is compatible not just with Photoshop (which I hope to get someday) but also with my current editing software Paint Shop Pro X. This means I can use it as a plug in now and in the future if I change software.

I know that I love to see examples of how things turned out so here is an example.

Editted Scan (Val was pretty underexposed in this image so I had to up the brightness in the shadows which brought out even more noise)


100% crop of Val's face before noise reduction


same crop after noise reduction with sharpening (the noise reduction can leave the image looking a bit soft if you don't sharpen with it).


Does that look like an improvement worth $50? I thought so.