Monthly Archives: March 2013

Noise Reduction with Dfine 2.0

Photography

Today I tried out Dfine 2.0 for noise reduction. First this meant finding a picture that contained some noticeable noise (i.e. shot in dim conditions at a high ISO setting). Since I generally avoid taking such shots this took some searching. However, have a spider again, just as an example. Here is the original:

Spider

And here is the result, having applied only automatic noise reduction:

Spider

On a small screen, or if viewed only inside this post, these two may look close to identical. However, look closer: Here is a 1MP crop of a section of the web from the top-left. First, without noise reduction:

Spider

And here with noise reduction. Notice how much smoother the background is, without blurring the web strands. I think this is pretty amazing — and took only a couple of minutes to achieve. I’m sure that selectively using the manual controls could lead to even better results.

Spider

Trying out the Nik Software Suite

Digital Art, Photography

Yesterday I downloaded a trial version of the complete Nik Collection — a series of six plug-ins for photo processing. Then I did a couple of tutorials, and finally tried it out on some of my photos. Here are the results.

First, combining a set of three bracketed exposures into an HDR picture. Now, HDR is very subjective so just looking at the final result I made may not please everyone. However, I had used precisely these three exposures before and tried to create an HDR composite from them that I liked, and hadn’t been entirely pleased with any result I could manufacture using my existing software stack.

I used these source photos of Brisbane CBD seen from Mt Coot-tha, with 2-stop brackets.

And this is the combined HDR picture:

Brisbane_HDR

Secondly, converting an existing photo to black-and-white, leaving some selective colouring. Cheesy, I know. But I liked these motorbikes that I photographed last year, and thought the metallic blue of the first one would stand out really nicely against a black-and-white background.

This is the original:

IMG_7631 Motorbike

A decent enough shot with potential but the background is washed out and distracting. This is my processed image, and I’m really happy with it:

IMG_7631 Motorbike BW

Remarkably, all this took only a few minutes. The same can be achieved with manual masks and/or other software, but, speaking from my experience in these matters, would take considerably longer. I like the way of creating masks really easily using control points. It what makes Snapseed (its mobile companion) my favourite iOS photo app.

 

Snake!!

Photography,

It’s a day for native wildlife. This morning, a huge huntsman in the shower. This evening, a huge snake trying to cross the road just in front of us. The Local Hero stood in the middle of the road, waving his hands to tell drivers to slow down. We think it’s a Coastal Carpet Python (Morelia Spilota). Average length 2.7m. Which sounds about right for this one. Eventually it decided not to cross the road after all, and doubled back
Into the undergrowth of the river bank.

20130322-190318.jpg