Removing digital "noise" from your photos

I frequently find myself taking photos in low light situations where my default lens (a 70-300 4.5/5.6) isn't optimal at low ISO speeds).  So I find myself pushing the ISO to 400,800 or even 1600 to get the shutter speeds necessary to get good photos.

This can cause problems with "digital noise".  It's problematic and can make for really bad looking enlargements.

Recently I was made aware of a product called Noiseware, which would read your JPG file, detect what camera it was shot with, and minimize the noise seen in the photo.

I thought, it's a free community supported product (in one version), so why not give it a try.

You be the judge.  The first photo shown below is without the noiseware solution.  It was shot last Friday night inside Richland's Toyota Stadium at my niece's high school graduation.  at 300mm, 1600 ISO:

 

 

After Noiseaware was applied (default settings)

 

It may not be as noticeable in these two pictures on here, but if you were to look at the original and the de-noised version,  you'd be convinced.  The have both standalone versions available and Photoshop plugins.  I don't use Photoshop, so the standalone version works really well for me.  They have a free community version (which is what I'm using) and a commercial version you'll need to pay for to utilize.  I highly recommend at least the free community stand alone version.  It has worked wonders for my photos shot with a Digital Rebel XTi.....

 

Check out NoiseAware here

 

Technorati tags: Noise, Digital Noise, NoiseAware