f/2 lens question for E-500.

[mckennma]

Which package or both? My workstation is highend. http://69.47.81.240/ My web site is up with its specs. I don't mind buying decent software for my dual AMD 265 dual core 1.8GHz Opterons with 3GB and PCI-X 64/133 512MB battery cached SCSI RAID drives. I have Adobe Photoshop CS2 with the E-500 patch from Olympus. I might upgrade to 8GB in October.

[JimC]

Wait until you've taken some photos. ;-)

If noise is objectionable at the print or viewing sizes needed, then use tools to reduce it. At smaller sizes, noise is not as noticeble.

Then, download the trial versions of packages and test them to see which one you like best for your images.

Noiseware and Neat Image have trial versions available.

They also have free stand alone versions (but, these strip the EXIF information out of images).

I'd also take a look at Eric Hyman's new Bibble versions. Eric's raw converters have technology from Noise Ninja built in now.

http://www.bibblelabs.com/

[mckennma]

I don't print many photos. They are either 800x600 on my web site or made into JPGs for video DVDs. So they get reduced in size. I don't mind purchasing either. Which one has more features and best compliments the images and does not remove EXIF information.

I would love to clean up noise in my other pictures from my Sony 1.3MP, Canon S45, and Canon S1 IS. Which app would be best?

[mckennma]

Bibble Labs will work well with my hardware, quad cores How is it on Canon S45 RAW images and JPGs from Sony 1.3 MP Mativa floppy?

[JimC]

mckennma wrote:

I don't print many photos. They are either 800x600 on my web site or made into JPGs for video DVDs. So they get reduced in size. I don't mind purchasing either. Which one has more features and best compliments the images and does not remove EXIF information.

The non-free versions don't strip the EXIF.

Try them out. No one product is that much better than another between the ones I've mentioned (and you can "tune" them for best results).

Also, they tend to "leapfrog" each other from time to time. For example, Noiseware may work better one week, and Neat Image the next week after a version upgrade.

One product may work better on some kinds of noise versus others, too.

That's why it's best to test them on your actual images to see what works best for your camera, at the settings you used, in the conditions you used.

Here is a comparison of some of the popular products (but, the rankings tend to change from time to time):

http://www.michaelalmond.com/Articles/noise.htm

PS CS2 even has a noise reduction filter built in (but, I have not been impressed with it).

[JimC]

mckennma wrote:

Bibble Labs will work well with my hardware, quad cores How is it on Canon S45 RAW images and JPGs from Sony 1.3 MP Mativa floppy?

Eric's raw conversion is pretty fast. I don't think it supports raw files from a Canon S45, though. It won't work with JPEG images, either (it's only for raw files).

Bibble is a raw converter with built in noise reduction features from Noise Ninja (another very good product for reducing noise). Bibble is not designed to be a stand alone product for noise reduction.

[mckennma]

Noiseware Pro: $69.95
Neat Image Pro: $74.95
Bibble Pro: $129.99

Under $300 for all three. I have Adobe Photoshop CS2 that they can plug into. I don't mind buying software to enhance my pictures. I would not use free software. Nothing is free.

[JimC]

mckennma wrote:

Under $300 for all three.

You may not want/need all 3.

When testing them, also consider your workflow. That will take some experience with your camera.

Download the trial versions to see what works best for you after you've got some images to test with, from your camera, in the conditions you'll be using it in. ;-)

I would not use free software

I use free software every day.

I sometimes like the free software better. For example, I use Irfanview for resizing, even though I've got lots of other products (free and commercial) that could also be used. It's faster, works in batch mode, and has sophisticated resizing algorithms like Lanczos.

I also use the free dcraw.c from command line in Windows for raw conversion relatively often. For some images, I like it's algorithms better than Adobe Camera Raw and other available products. For other images, I may prefer a different raw converter.

Heck, I even switched my wife to a free (Linux) operating system (SimplyMEPIS) a while back. She prefers it to MS Windows.

[mckennma]

I see your point. I would like to do the following:

1.) Process the E-500 RAW to JPGs and clean them up
2.) Go back and clean up the noise on my older pictures.

http://69.47.81.240/Vacation/2001/Mi...%20of%20Milan/
http://69.47.81.240/Vacation/2003/00...SANC/index.htm

Here is a sample of what I want to clean up. These are JPGs from a Sony Mativa 1.3MP Floppy camera. I want to clean up the dark inside pictures of the Cathedral of Milan and Sanctuary of Saint Rosalio. I haveCanon RAW for 2003 pictures.

[JimC]

Try out the demo/trial versions. The Neat Image demo doesn't expire. It strips out the EXIF in the saved images (just never overwrite your originals). It will work on your jpeg images, too.

Noiseware will also work on your JPEG images and they have a free "community" edition you can try (which also strips the EXIF). I've used it often in the past. Their free version won't work as a plugin to photoshop, though (so, you'd need to download a trial of their commercial versions to test it as a plugin).

Then, if you decide you like one better, get a non-free version that retains EXIF.

http://www.neatimage.com/download.html

BTW, I was mistaken about Bibble. I took a look at supported cameras and it does support raw files from your Canon S45. But, it wouldn't work for JPEG images from your Sony. You'd need to buy Noise Ninja separately for jpeg files if you decided you liked it's noise reduction technology.

You may prefer the way Adobe Camera Raw converts raw files from your E-500. No one converter does best in all conditions without some "tweaking".

I often run the same raw files through more than one raw converter to see which one does best with the least amount of tweaking (and the one I like best will vary by image).

I have not tried Eric's latest 4.6 version of Bibble including Noise Ninja technology yet.