blp shabash 430x45
Inspiring and Supporting Photographers of Australian Birds

Eastern Yellow Robin

Photographed by

Kathy Zonnevylle on Mon 24th Feb, 2020 and uploaded on Sat 7th Mar, 2020 .

Resolution

1800x1200

Viewed

493

39484

Comment

This is the final of 3 images to compare noise reduction techniques. This was processed in DPP4 then the bird and branch selected in PSE 2020 and noise reduced using Neat Image v8. The background had 100% noise reduction applied and the bird and branch only 40% with 100% detail preservation applied. The image was then processed in PSE 2020 as per the previous image with minimal sharpening to bird and branch only post downsizing. I was really impressed with the Neat Image software. I could have spent more time reducing noise in select areas of the bird e.g belly and vent.

Equipment

Canon 7D II with Canon 100-400 II lens at 400mm.
f 5.6. Speed 1/640. ISO 3200. Manual exposure handheld. AI Servo AF.

Location

Bunyip State Forest Mortimer's Picnic ground, Victoria

Keywords

immature

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Ian Wilson	2020-03-08 09:20:31	Hello Kathy, I am very pleased to see you have your new software working together. To get the most out of your images it helps to understand some of the photographic science behind your workflow, especially the interplay between sharpness and digital noise reduction. There are two kinds of sharpness. One is known as acutance and is a measure of how ‘crisp’ hard edges are rendered in the image. This kind of sharpness works by introducing special edge artefacts that give the perception of sharpening. UnSharp Mask produces this kind of effect and is known as perceptual sharpening. The other kind of sharpness is a measure of the fine detail contrast in the image and this is the one that is most important. The contrast of fine detail is determined by the lens MTF, digital sampling, the AA-filter spatial frequency response, and the amount of noise reduction. The contrast of fine detail is reduced by the lens and there is a point reached where the contrast of very fine is no longer visible. The loss of fine detail contrast is due to residual optical aberrations and diffraction and is characterized by the MTF. The effect of residual optical aberrations can be ameliorated to some extent by what is known as deconvolution sharpening and this is what the Digital Lens Optimizer does in DPP. The kind of telephoto lenses we use in bird photography are almost aberration free so the DLO has a small effect but still worthwhile. The optimum amount is DLO = 50. Digital sampling affects the contrast because fine details are recorded by too few pixels in the sensor array. There is also the Bayer colour filter array which under-samples the image in colour space and requires the use of a mathematical estimate to reconstruct the full colour image. Together, these cause the contrast of fine detail to fall off a bit like the lens MTF until a point is reached where the very fine detail is no longer recorded. The AA-filter also reduces the contrast of fine details as it works to prevent the recording of fake digital image components and attenuate the strength of moiré bands in the image. Capture sharpening is required to boost the contrast of the fine details in the image that have been reduced by all of the above. In DPP we achieve this with a small contribution from the DLO (= 50) and a larger contribution from the sharpening slider. Too much sharpening will cause artefacts to appear especially around hard edges in the image. The ideal amount of sharpening depends on the lens aperture and in DPP is in the range 1.8 for f/4 up to 3 for f/11. That brings me to noise reduction. DPP applies a default amount of luminance noise reduction depending upon the ISO. My research shows that the luminance noise reduction reduces the fine detail contrast and to recover this more sharpening is required than the ideal suggested above. This extra sharpening can cause undesirable artefacts as already mentioned. I therefore recommend you set the luminance noise reduction slider to zero in DPP and rely entirely on Neat Image for your luminance noise reduction. Now I am going to discuss the application of Neat Image. I assume you have made appropriate RAW adjustments in DPP and have converted and saved a 16-bit TIFF in Photoshop. After making your background selection run Neat Image (advanced window) with luminance noise reduction amount = 80%, artefact removal turned on, and turn of detail recovery and sharpening. If you decide to run Neat Image on the bird I suggest you use luminance NR = 35%, turn off artefact removal, turn on detail recovery and use gentle sharpening like 75, 35, 0 or 50, 25, 0%. Detail recovery only works on fine detail in repeating patterns such as the regularly spaced barbs on feathers. So if you want to apply a little sharpening to irregular texture such as around a bird’s face, you will need to make a selection of that area and apply Neat Image sharpening to only that selection. You may find the tail is outside the depth of field and in this case you can make a selection and apply the Neat Image out of focus sharpening option. I hope these comments help you to get the most out of your new software.
Neville Horner	2020-05-19 19:22:31	amazing difference, great job

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	150/283 in Critique Gallery
	46/48 by Kathy Zonnevylle
	94/239 of Eastern Yellow Robin
	656/1254 of Australian Robins
	18164/34495 Overall
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