![]() ![]() The following are the programs I tested: GEM, Photomechanic, Picture Cooler, Akvis Noise Reducer, Noiseware, MagicDenoiser, Noise Ninja, Dfine2, Neat Image, Pure Image, Stoika Noise Autofx1.6. All of these programs can be downloaded for demo purposes. My purpose here was to reduce or soften film grain without destroying the details in the image so I tested all these programs for that purpose. Then, I did a current search of the web because the author's last update was in 2005. I found this very useful comparison of programs at: and started from there. I was not happy with these results so I started searching the web for information on third part plugins or standalone programs. I did not try any of the Action Scripts one can purchase to use in Photoshop. I had first tried the noise reduction filter in Photoshop and a few other ways to remove noise using Photoshop tools. However, when scanned in, noise was generated. I knew this wasn't noise since noise is generated by digital cameras, but I tried these various programs to see if I could use the features to reduce the grain in the slides. I wanted to save these, so I began to experiment with noise reduction programs. This was visible to the naked eye, especially when magnified. I thought that they might have disintegrated slightly because they had such a large amount of ugly grain, some of which had strange colors, especially in the areas of the skin. I decided to work on some slides that I had taken over 30 years ago. Its not helped that Phase don't illustrate what the styles do, so you are buying blind.Grain Reduction in Slides (update on original article) I like the new C1 styles (from the sample pack) but they seem very expensive to me, and still contemplating spending the money. But I have also bought some C1 styles and downloaded some free ones, which again I find useful to see what might be done. However, seeing how the different effects altered my image did help, and still help, in the learning process. My learning of Post Processing has come in small chunks spread far apart in time, and I have bought NIk (when you had to pay for it), All the Topaz plugins, ON1 10 suite, all the MacPhun Plugins, Noiseware, Piccure_+, Neat Image, and with the exceptions of the Noise reduction tools, I have found all the Plugins to be over the top, and once dialed back to being acceptable, don't give results as pleasing to my eye as just using C1. I sometimes use DXO for noise reduction and they go out of C1 as Raw files and come back as DNGs, I sometimes edit with a PlugIn directly from C1 and they go out as Tiffs, and I sometimes send to PS or Affinity and they go out as PSDs. I am using PSD just to differentiate between where files have been. However I do like the color editor presets. ![]() I like the idea of doing as much as I can at the raw stage but haven't found C 1 styles to be very useful. I thought they were just promoting PSD file recognition as a new feature. I recently, for the first time, created two images in C1, one set up for the highlights and the other for the shadows, and blended them in PS and Affinity ( I am learning them both at the moment) and just followed some youtube tutorials. I really don't think getting started in Affinity or PS, is all that difficult, but you do need to spend a bit of time working through some tutorials. And its a good way of running photoshop plugins even if not all of them work in Affinity. I've also found that a lot of the Photoshop tutorials are fairly easily translated into Affinity speak. I rarely use PS or Affinity, as for me nearly everything I want to do I can do in C1, but Affinity seems to have become a fairly popular companion to C1, and it has some very good tutorials. I really mentioned it because you need to change the preferences, if you don't, Affinity tries to save the PSD file as an Affinity Photo File. No reason not to use Tiffs (as Ian says in his post) as far as I am aware, but I assume there are some advantages to using PSDs as Phase have been promoting PSD round tripping recently. I've never used PS - that's why I'm a little nervous about Affinity - I wd just use Tiff for round trips
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