Sagelight Noise Reduction
Sagelight Noise Reduction tools are simple and powerful. They have been designed to generate great results with the movement of just one or two sliders, moving into a more professional-level toolset with other optional controls.
What is Image Noise?
Image noise is the CCD noise that causes an image to look like it has film grain in it (or, in the case of a digital scan, this can also be film grain itself). Some images have a lot of this noise, while others have a little noise. This is also often referred to as "white noise".
Noise removal is about removing this grain and leaving behind a clean, crisp image with the details remaining, and only the noise removed.
There are also some elements that causes problems with images that are not image noise that we can also address. For example, JPEG artifacts caused by the in-camera compression (or some JPEG image that has otherwise been compressed with Sagelight, Lightroom, Adobe Photoshop, etc.) can be addressed with the Sagelight Noise Reduction algorithms.
Color Noise vs. Detail Noise
Image Noise is usually CCD noise in the details (or film grain), but can also extend into color noise. Sagelight Noise Reduction can also deal with color noise, with three different algorithms for different approaches.
Noise Reduction and Smoothing
Just removing noise is not always enough. Image Smoothing is also part of Sagelight Noise Removal. This allows you to clean up your image by removing the noise, but also smoothing the non-detail elements to get rid of larger elements that can cause the image to lack a certain quality.
Almost all images can benefit from the Smoothing elements of Sagelight Noise Reduction. In many cases, an image will look just fine, but upon close inspection (i.e. a zoom magnification of 300% or more), small amounts of grain noise can be seen. When cleaned up, the image will look nicer and cleaner, even though it originally looked just fine. Similarly, many images that do not specifically contain noise, can benefit from a small amount of image smoothing.
Even when an image does lack noise, smoothing can not only clean up the image, but it can help prepare it for sharpening. Where, in many cases, sharpening brings out low-level CCD noise not otherwise seen, using the smoothing properties of Sagelight Noise Reduction will keep the image looking great even when highly sharpened.
Natural vs. Artificial Results
Artificial-looking results can often be a problem with removing noise. Sagelight's noise removal algorithms were written specifically to address this problem. A large part of this problem is due to the advances in technology over the last few years. With larger images (i.e. 12 megapixel, 15 megapixel, and more), dealing with noise is different than it was before. For example, many programs DCT image noise reduction. DCT 8x8 used to be the standard, and most images look just fine when it is used. However, newer images can become artificial looking with an 8x8 cell size with DCT. To counter this, among other algorithms, Sagelight offers a fast DCT 16x16 algorithm that delivers great-looking, natural results on larger images. DCT 8x8 is also offered for smaller images.
With other algorithms that Sagelight uses, there are many elements to avoid this issue. See the 'Large Image Radius' switch, for example, with the Sagelight Noise Reduction function.
Automatic Results
With just the use of one slider, Sagelight delivers excellent noise reduction. Then, with just one more slider, you can refine these results.
Sagelight Noise Reduction is designed to make noise removal easy and effective.
Professional-Level Controls
If you want to do more, a number of controls are also available to work with the Noise Reduction algorithm. For example, you can avoid edges, restore edges, control how the edges appear to Sagelight, and so-forth, to get the maximum noise reduction and smoothing, while preserving as many details as possible.
Fast Results and Inspecting Your Image
While you can just move the Noise Reduction Strength Slider and let Sagelight decide how your image should look, you can also zoom in and look at various areas of the image before you commit to the noise reduction.
Sagelight Noise Reduction is design to be fast and reactive, so you can zoom into the image and inspect various areas.
For great noise reduction, it is important to look at various areas of your image. When you move controls, you should zoom in and look at specific areas that are important to the image. Sagelight's noise reduction function allows you to use the usual image view to look at the image in the full screen, and not a small preview box.
Smooth Results and The "Sharpening Test"
One of the primary areas of research for Sagelight Noise Reduction was in delivering smooth results that do not leave artifacts behind. The "Sharpening Test" is when you sharpen the image to a high degree to look for artifacts left behind by the noise reduction. This is unfortunately common with noise reduction programs.
Sagelight's noise reduction is very smooth, passing the sharpening test with flying colors. The results delivered will allow you to work with your image even more than before. Typically, when you work with your image, especially when adding color, sharpening, or brightening shadows, the image grain and color noise can start to show after a while. With Sagelight's Noise Reduction, this allows you to do more with your image since it has left behind no artifacts that would otherwise show up after more editing.
Saturation is a Challenging Technical Process
