Canon DPP vs. third party processing (concerning noise reduction)

[bellimages]

I'm a bit confused here. After reading the two attached paragraphs from the Canon Knowledge Base site (see below) concerning "high ISO noise reduction" (in the camera), I find that third party software (ie: Photoshop) negates this setting. HOW can that be? The camera's processor processes an image (reducing noise) before saving its file. So how can Photoshop bring the noise back? That's weird (and not good).


• Canon DPP:
DPP can read the camera settings in effect at the time the images are taken, it tends to downplay the effect of the camera’s High ISO Noise Reduction.  You may see little difference if you compare two RAW files, one with NR active, and one with it turned off. However, DPP has another option:  its own separate Noise Reduction tools.  For RAW images, DPP allows the option to reduce chrominance or luminance noise, or both.  And, unlike the camera’s High ISO Noise Reduction, you can apply it in medium or strong quantities, using a variable on-screen slider.  Finally, if you don’t shoot RAW images, Digital Photo Professional still has an answer.  For JPEG images, or TIFFs that you’ve created in an image-editing program, you can reduce chrominance noise using a slider control on-screen.

• Third-party RAW file software programs:
Virtually all third-party RAW file software programs, such as Adobe’s Camera Raw™ software, will ignore in-camera settings such as High ISO Noise Reduction.  Therefore, if you use another company’s software, you’ll generally have to use the software’s own tools to change the look of your finished pictures.  Don’t expect the High ISO Noise Reduction you may have set in-camera to have any effect with most third-party software programs. You can easily experiment to see what impact in-camera settings may have with your third-party software of choice — take a RAW image with High ISO Noise Reduction or a similar EOS feature off, and then a second RAW image with the feature turned on.  Process both in the third-party software, and compare the finished results in Photoshop or another image-editing program, and view them at about 50% to 100% magnification on-screen.

[Mark D Segal]

By the way, I just visited your website and I think your photos are superb.

Nothing wrong or contradictory as far as I can tell here. If my reading of these paragraphs is correct, Canon is simply telling you that if you shoot raw and want to process your raw images in an application other than DPP, don't expect those applications (such as LR, ACR) to recognize any in-camera noise reduction you may have implemented. This is actually a very good thing. One should prefer raw files to have as little of this tinkering as possible, allowing you to adjust noise and sharpening to your own taste in a totally controlled, non-destructive and reversible manner using a raw converter giving you this flexibility. I would recommend turning all that in-camera stuff off for a raw workflow.

[john beardsworth]

Remember that with a raw file, the camera's noise reduction settings are only added to the raw data as proprietary tags. DPP understands these, and then it - not the camera - does the noise reduction work. Adobe and other 3rd parties don't have access to these tags so they aren't bringing the noise back, just starting from the raw data.

[bellimages]

THANKS .... that totally explains it.

[hiker]

Personally I was not happy with the noise reduction raw-converters are offering. I did a lot of tests with dpp, acr, etc....
My experience and tests showed me that plugins for photoshop gave me a much better result. Also I have a better control with photoshop. I can work with marked areas, so i don't destroy fine structure in other areas.
There are plenty of plugins doing that. As far as I'm concerned, I would never say plugin xy is the best. There are different kinds of noise so one software can handle i.e. color noise better than contrast noice and vice versa.
I recommend to download and test them by yourself. Some are shareware. Try before buy.

There are also different methods to minimize noise while shooting.