free noise reduction software?

[4Lmike]

can anyone recommend some decent, free noise reduction software. also is there any software out there that is better than photoshop for sharpening? cheers

[Gemm]

http://www.neatimage.com/

http://www.imagenomic.com/nwsa.aspx

[SamHH]

What software do you have at the moment? Lots of photo editing programs have noise reduction tools, so you might find you already have something suitable.

I doubt there is anything better than Photoshop (the c. £600 one) at sharpening, although lots of other programs can do it well. As with most things though, to get the best results you need to know how to use the various sharpening tools. Also, sharpening can only enhance what you've already got, so depending on what your problem is, the answer might not be in processing. What are you struggling with specifically?

Edited by SamHH on Tuesday 28th December 16:37

[jimmy156]

Annoyingly the free version of neat image will only apply noise reduction to 1024px X 1024px when used as a plug in in photoshop. But i think should work normally when used as a standalone.

[Pupp]

Have rcently started using Gimp after some time on PS CS2 and am very pleased with the results so far although it did need a third-party plug in to handle Nikon RAW files. Certainly can't complain at the cost

[4Lmike]

Cheer Gemm, I'll try those out.

Personally I can't stand Gimp, plus I've got photoshop anyway so was really just looking for a standalone noise reduction software as opposed to a complete image editing program

[andy-xr]

Check out the Topaz one, installs into PS but best off on a seperate layer. It's slow but fairly precise