NIK Dfine 2.0 Noise Plugin
The above example illustrates what digital noise looks like from a modern digital camera at ISO 3200.
ISO noise is essentially the modern day digital film grain of yesteryear. To give a quick history lesson, in the days before digital, there were what we called film speeds, applied to various types of film. The film speed is what gave you enhanced shutter speeds in things like sports, and other high action low light requirements. The consequence with this type of film is the grain that was introduced. There were various processes in the darkroom that could compensate for this grain, but overall, you were stuck with it.
Most families shot with ISO 100 to ISO 400 film. Specialty film, or transparency film could go from ISO 50 (and lower) all the way to 3200, and in some cases, 6400 in B&W (if you push it in the darkroom).
Enter the 21st century, and the real dawn of the digital camera’s with sensors that could push the envelope with ISO quality. Just like film grain, ISO noise (remember, not grain), is an RGB artifact that is left in the image which allows for you to achieve higher shutter speeds, especially when using higher apertures (f/2.8,f/4 etc.). There are also two types of noise, digital and color. Digital cameras produced between 2001-2007 progressed the quality of ISO noise however, not since about 2007 have we seen cameras with exceptional ISO quality at speeds of 3200+ which require little to no post processing.
The above example illustrates what digital noise looks like from a modern digital camera at ISO 100. Note the LACK of Digital Noise.
Even with the major enhancements to sensor quality, and ISO speeds in modern digital cameras (like being able to go to ISO 6400, 12K, 25K, etc.) there is still a need for post processing to get better quality. In the event however, that you are trying to achieve a film grain look, it’s important to consider processing out the digital noise first, then converting to B&W, or keeping color and applying a grain filtration process after the fact.
As you can see from the above two images, ISO 100 and ISO 3200 show a considerable difference in digital noise.
- Exposure: 1/50 sec at f/2.8
- Focal Length: 70mm
- ISO Speed Rating: ISO 100
- Model: Canon EOS-1D Mark II
- Lens: Canon 70-200 2.8 IS II
- Exposure: 1/320 sec at f/6.3
- Focal Length: 70mm
- ISO Speed Rating: ISO 3200
- Model: Canon EOS-1D Mark II
- Lens: Canon 70-200 2.8 IS II
Why the difference in settings? Increasing your ISO yields a faster shutter speed, and more depth of field capabilities. Shutter speed is ultimately controlling the amount of ambient light in your scene, and therefore how fast you can freeze the action depending on your shooting situation. And with todays digital camera technology, the ability to push the ISO limits is getting better with every generation of new bodies.
Since you may have a camera that’s slightly older (1-2 generations behind), but are not ready to upgrade to a newer body, or find yourself shooting more with higher ISO settings (low light, night shots, sports, etc.), then you will want to read on. If you’ve come here just to learn what ISO means, and how it compares to film grain, fantastic. You’re done, and can finish your latte.
Enter the NIK Dfine 2.0 plugin for Lightroom. My digital workflow begins with shooting in RAW format, importing into Lightroom, performing initial cataloging and processing of an image, followed by a run through Dfine, and potentially to another application for further processing if required. For any shot I take above ISO 400, I typically run it through Dfine even if I only need to do light amounts of noise reduction. But shooting at ISO 1600 and 3200 really lets this software shine.
NIK Dfine is a plugin that allows you to “clean” your images by reducing or eliminating the digital noise. It’s a combination of mathematics, science, and a little magic! I won’t go into details, because you can find them on NIK’s website instead.
Here’s where it gets fun. Using something like NIK Dfine, we can now take these otherwise unusable images, and transform them to images that appear to have been taken at a much lower ISO, say, between 100 and 400. That’s great news! This accomplishes two things:
- You feel more confident about your shooting, by increasing ISO to compensate for hand held shots in tough situations knowing in processing that you can clean it up.
- You can use slower glass at speeds of f/2.8 or slower with the confidence that shooting at the higher ISO will get the job done in a pinch.
We’re going to take the first set of images above (shot at ISO 3200) and bring them into NIK Dfine for processing. Dfine does a lot of the work already, so there’s no need to adjust many settings. This is great since a novice can achieve amazing results in little time. Remember, this software was created by photographers, for photographers. So they know what their doing. You can view a demo on NIKs website to get a good idea of the actual process involved. They have a really good section on the use of Control Points to reduce ISO noise.
By running the ISO 3200 image through NIK Dfine, you can see some incredible results.
Image on the left was shot at ISO 100. Image on the right is ISO 3200 shot processed in Dfine. Both images are from the above two shots.
That about does it. Hopefully you’ve learned a bit about ISO noise, the differences between film grain and digital noise, plus the beauty of NIK Dfine to process and handle these high ISO shots. You can gain a lot with something like this, more than just Lightroom offers, and certainly in your confidence to shoot at higher ISO’s when dealing with special lighting conditions. I give this software a positive rating, with bonus marks for ease of use, and ability to integrate into your workflow for single or bath processing.
Remember however, that Lightroom’s built in noise reduction is pretty good. What NIK Dfine does is give that “pretty good” a leg up. Also note that Dfine may not be able to completely correct the color noise, as I noted above. In this case, Lightroom has a greater overall image color noise reduction depending on how extreme the color ranges are. For example, if you are shooting something digital, like a clock which can present Comma (a common occurrence with some lens and digital SLR combinations), or digital blobs, you may not be able to remove all digital noise from the image if you’ve already performed some level of processing (contrast, brightness, clarity, etc.) within Lightroom. Keep that in mind as you build out your digital workflow.
If you have any questions on this software, or specifics mentioned in this article, contact me through the comments below, or on my contact page.
Any reason NIK dfine cannot be used with Photoshop? Would it be compromised as compared to use with Lightroom?
22, March 2013, 1:27pm -Joel, sorry for the late reply! I just noticed the comment. NIK can be used with Photoshop – I just didn’t use it there, instead only as a plugin with Lightroom. Since my workflow is primarily in Lightroom, I didn’t need to leverage it within Photoshop, that’s all.
29, April 2013, 2:44pm -