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Neat Image user guide

1. File formats supported all formats supported by plug in host Device noise profiles Automatic matching profiles to images RO Noise _Channel wise Lum Chr Y Cr Cb reduction Frequency wise High Mid Low Very low Channel wise Y Cr Cb sharpening Filter presets reusable filter settings a limited part of the input image is processed if the image is larger than 1024x1024 pixels 40 O 1999 2014 by Neat Image team ABSoft All rights reserved 26 Sep 14 User Guide Neat Image plug in for Photoshop Win 13 4 Contacts We really appreciate your opinion of Neat Image Please let us know what you think about the software Feel free to ask questions regarding Neat Image To share your opinion or to receive support regarding Neat Image use any of the following means E mails info Oneatimage com for general inquiries photoshop Oneatimage com for inquiries regarding use of Neat Image for Photoshop Win sales Oneatimage com for inquiries regarding purchase of licenses for Neat Image Community forum Register in Neat Image community forum http www neatimage net forum and participate in discussions on the use and development of Neat Image Such topics are covered in the forum as announcements of new and updated versions of the software questions about use of Neat Image examples of Neat Image performance with comments and suggestions feedback from Neat Image users suggestions of
2. E950 150225 2bpp 1600x1200 WB Default 0 50s Neat Image will use Auto Profile to build a profile using the input image ia 5 Auto Profile o Smart Profile Auto Profile and Auto Match Smart Profile Auto Profile and Auto Match Neat Image will use both Auto Profile and Auto Auto FineTune Match to prepare two noise profiles and then will select the better of two resulting profiles LE This provides higher overall quality at Use Current Preset expense of slightly longer processing time Default To be fully efficient this option also needs a pre built set of noise profiles for Auto Match to work You can configure the behavior of the Smart Profile function using the settings link e Auto Fine Tune Neat Image will additionally apply Auto Fine Tune to adapt the loaded profile to the input image this option is available when you use either Use Current Profile or Auto Match Auto P rofile applies Auto Fine Tune automatically The plug in will always use the current filter settings as the default filter preset for the next run 1 You can check and adjust the location of that folder using the menu Tools gt P references gt Folders gt Preset folder This subsection applies to Neat Image Pro plug in only 26 Sep 14 1999 2014 by Neat Image team ABSoft All rights reserved 17 User Guide Neat Image plug in for Photoshop Win 5 5 Stage V Apply filter To apply filter to the image Click the Apply butto
3. 60 level then this adjustment is also taken into account For example r 100 if you set the Noise Levels Y control to 15 then what is a 100 considered by the noise filter as the actual noise level is Very low freq High quality 8 55 100 15 gt 9 83 units Smooth edges V High resolution With this adjustment the image elements in the Y channel that are weaker than 9 83 units are considered noise and reduced and elements that are stronger than 9 83 units are preserved Thus with a noise level noise reduction amount pair of settings you can adjust what should be considered noise in a component of the input image and how much of this noise should be reduced You have access to six such pairs three for channel components Y Cr Cb and three for spatial frequency components High Mid Low of the input image Because the noise level controls are relative to the device noise profile the default filter settings usually produce good results when the noise profile is accurate The noise level defaults are 0 which means the noise levels are completely determined by the noise profile When you adjust the level controls the noise level estimations are raised or lowered accordingly A noise level control can be in the range from 100 which means no image elements are considered noise and therefore no noise reduction 1s applied in the corresponding image component to 150 which means noise r
4. 1999 2014 by Neat Image team ABSoft All rights reserved 26 Sep 14 User Guide Neat Image plug in for Photoshop Win 1 Introduction 1 1 Overview Neat Image is a digital filter software designed to reduce visible noise in digital photographic images Neat Image incorporates the most advanced noise reduction algorithms in the industry Neat Image detects analyzes and reduces image noise The quality of Neat Image noise reduction is higher than that of other methods because Neat Image takes into account specific characteristics of particular image acquisition devices thus making the filtration more Noise is a serious problem that hinders high quality digital image processing In digital photography the consumer and prosumer level cameras produce images with an easily noticeable noise component This component is especially strong in images shot at high ISO rates The noise reduces the visual quality of digital images and resulting printouts Some image processing operations like sharpening make quality of noisy images even worse accurate Using device noise profiles Neat Image adapts its noise filter to almost any input device digital camera scanner etc Neat Image s noise filter offers a rich control set to let user adjust all settings and achieve the desired level of noise reduction In addition Neat Image includes a smart sharpening filter to make images look sharper without any degradation of image
5. Compression 1 1 or Uncompressed 1 5 or Fine 1 10 or Normal 1 20 or Basic etc or 2 bits pixel 4 bits pixel etc depends on a camera Low Normal High etc depends on a camera 1 1 original resolution like 4288x2848 1 2 downsized in camera e g 2144x1424 2 1 digital zoom 2x etc White balance Exposure Sun Cloudy Incandescent Fluorescent etc depends on a camera 1 16s 1 0s 16s Higher ISO rate produces more noise In camera noise reduction can reduce levels of noise in photos usually at expense of some details Internal sharpness adjustment of a camera makes noise more intensive Using no internal sharpness adjustment produces least noise Strong JPEG compression typically produces more JPEG artifacts and destroys image elements including noise weaker compression preserves more image elements including noise created by the image sensor It is preferable to use the lowest amount of compression for the best results Camera s internal interpolation both downsizing and upsizing e g that of digital zoom changes many characteristics of noise White balancing changes characteristics of noise mainly of color noise slightly Longer exposures produce more hot pixel noise also some cameras switch on the automatic noise reduction when exposure is longer than a certain threshold this may affect the noise levels and other people if you decide to share your results
6. Please do share because in this way you will help people with the same camera or scanner model You can submit a set of profiles to the Neat Image team to publish the set in the profile library in www neatimage com see Contacts page 41 or just share them with other people directly 26 Sep 14 1999 2014 by Neat Image team ABSoft All rights reserved 27 User Guide Neat Image plug in for Photoshop Win Scanner camera parameters in the order of decreasing importance Film type For example Kodak Tmax 400 Every film type produces specific grain pattern which Kodak Tri X Professional 320 depend on film materials Strength of the grain depends on Fuji Superia 200 etc ASAJISO rate of the film Scamning For example 300 dpi 3200 dpi Higher scanner resolution emphasized film grain and resolution 4000 dpi etc makes 1t more evident in the scanner image Number of Single pass Multi pass scanning can potentially produce less grainy scan passes 2x pass images 4x pass etc If two images were captured in the same or similar conditions most of the above device mode parameters are the same then the noise of these two images should be very similar If you have built a device noise profile using one of these images you can use this profile to filter both images with good results If the shooting or scanning conditions were different then the noise in two images could be significantly different In this case cross use of one
7. Stage Invoke the plug in from Photoshop In Photoshop open and select an image to be processed 1t will be called input image hereafter and then invoke the Neat Image plug in using the standard method Select the Filter gt Neat Image gt Reduce Noise menu item in Photoshop The Neat Image plug in window will open and show the input image To scroll and pan the image e press the spacebar and drag the image with the left mouse button To change the image zoom level e use the mouse wheel when mouse is over the viewer e use the zoom control under the image viewer e use the Ctrl Plus Ctrl Minus Ctrl 0 zero Ctrl Alt 0 zero keyboard shortcuts 5 2 Stage Il Prepare a device noise profile To filter the input image Neat Image needs to know the characteristics of noise produced by the image acquisition device digital camera scanner etc that the image comes from The noise characteristics of a device working in a certain mode are stored in a device noise profile There are several ways to get a device noise profile that suits the input image 1 Auto Profile to build a new profile by analyzing the input image or a specially prepared test image 2 Auto Match to automatically select the most suitable device noise profile from a pre built set of profiles when it is available 3 Smart Profile to use both Auto Profile and Auto Match with Auto Fine Tune to prepare two candidate profiles and then automat
8. click the Apply button 26 Sep 14 1999 2014 by Neat Image team ABSoft All rights reserved 7 User Guide Neat Image plug in for Photoshop Win 4 2 Running Neat Image on a sample image You can download a test kit prepared to help you start using Neat Image plug in http www neatimage net files Testkit5 zip 250KB Please download and unzip it to a new folder on the hard disk The test kit contains a sample image SampleImage jpg This image is a part of typical photo taken with a digital camera The detailed information about the test image is available in the Samplelmagelnfo txt file Please go through the stages below to see how the image can be improved by Neat Image Stage 1 Open the sample image in Photoshop and invoke Neat Image 1 Open the sample image SampleImage jpg in Photoshop You will see that there is strong noise in the image especially in the sky area use zoom and scroll to better see it This is the typical noise produced by a digital camera The task of Neat Image is to reduce this noise 2 Select the Filter gt Neat Image gt Reduce Noise menu in Photoshop to open Neat Image plug in Stage 2 Load the sample noise profile in Neat Image plug in To reduce noise in the image Neat Image generally needs a noise profile describing the noise properties of the image For this sample image we have prepared such a noise profile in the test kit in advance SampleProfile dnp Using this profile Neat Image c
9. 10 1 Images to build a noise profile The image below contains examples of areas that are good and bad from the standpoint of profiling Here good image areas are highlighted in green these should be at least 32x32 pixels large preferably more than 128x128 pixels bad ones are highlighted in red If the input image you have does contain similar good flat featureless noise only areas as shown in the example then you can be sure that automatic profiling will produce an accurate noise profile However if there are no such flat featureless areas in the input image then automatic profiling will not work well with the image because building a profile using an area with details produces an inaccurate profile that will then lead to very inaccurate filtration In such a case you have to use either an alternative image with flat featureless areas or to use the Calibration Target to produce test images with flat featureless areas aiai PN i DE m a os an a te Additional comments regarding the good and bad areas in this example are in the next page 36 1999 2014 by Neat Image team ABSoft All rights reserved 26 Sep 14 User Guide Neat Image plug in for Photoshop Win These image areas are good to build device noise profiles as they contain no visible details GOOD because this area contains no important details iii GOOD no important details this area is from another image
10. 4 Filtration process overview 4 1 Overview of Neat Image filtration process 1 Prepare image ata teen eae ee eee q Ma Reese vraoa o Pues FaSosen F scme Pret See in Photoshop open the image to be ng arano a processed e s D ll ee L use the Filter gt Neat Image gt Reduce E a 7 Noise menu item to open Neat Z Image 2 Prepare a noise profile AA EE us ness 3 o UTE ma Amm Windows Te FA Zoom Al Windows J Send Zoom Acne Faso Fasos Print Sue Build a new profile on the spot orloada pre built one Derace h To build a new profile Click the Auto Profile button this will automatically find select and analyze a featureless noise only image area 1f you see that the automatically selected area includes any important image details then move the selection to an area without details and click the Auto Profile button again MERA ERIN n a r soe My K C osen mmm gt O swe GISLE 3 Adjust the filter settings SA ET Q AA tse Zoom al Windows Scrubby Zoom asion fesoun Fasoon Print Sue switch to the Noise Filter Settings tab y adjust the filter settings to achieve desired level of noise reduction try to vary the setting Noise Reduction Amounts Luminance and see how the preview changes LAA Drs SPARS FAN ARO 4 When you are happy with preview results apply the filter to the image
11. 58xx 59xx AMD Radeon HD 67xx 68xx 69xx AMD Radeon HD 77xx 78xx 79xx AMD Radeon HD 87xx 88xx 89xx AMD Radeon R7 260X AMD Radeon R9 270X 280X 290X Another AMD ATI GPU based on one of the following chip series Juniper Cypress Barts Cayman Cape Verde Pitcairn Tahiti Bonaire Hainan Hawaii e Latest version of AMD Catalyst Driver 1 3 2 64 bit plug in Recommended OS e Windows 8 x 64 bit Windows 7 64 bit Vista 64 bit Windows XP 64 bit The plug in is compatible with the following plug in hosts Adobe Photoshop CC 2014 CC CS6 CS5 x CS4 all 64 bit Corel PHOTO PAINT X7 X6 64 bit Corel Paint Shop Pro X7 X6 64 bit PhotoLine 64 bit The plug in may be compatible with other 64 bit hosts as well 1 3 3 32 bit plug in Recommended OS e Windows 8 Windows 7 Vista XP 32 bit or 64 bit The plug in is compatible with the following plug in hosts e Adobe Photoshop CC 2014 CC CS6 CS5 x CS4 CS3 CS2 CS 7 6 5 all 32 bit Adobe Photoshop Elements 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 Corel Jasc Paint Shop Pro X7 X6 X5 X4 X3 X2 XI X 9 8 7 CorelDRAW Graphics Suite Corel PHOTO PAINT X7 X6 X5 X4 X3 12 Ulead PhotoImpact X3 12 11 10 XL 8 Microsoft Digital Image Pro Microsoft Digital Image Suite 2006 PhotoLine 32 bit The plug in may be compatible with other 32 bit hosts as well 4 1999 2014 by Neat Image team ABSoft All rights reserved 26 Sep 14 User Guide Neat I
12. Advanced mode We recommend starting with the part about the Standard mode and then proceeding to the part about the Advanced mode if you are going to use the complete control set 5 3 3 Adjust filter settings in Standard mode There are two main filters in Neat Image noise reduction filter and sharpening filter These two filters can be used together and each of them can be used independently You can enable disable and adjust these filters using the guidelines in the subsections below Adjusting noise filter settings in Standard mode If you work with a color image then two major image components can be distinguished the luminance and chrominance component This distinction 1s very useful from the standpoint of noise reduction because it allows processing luminance and chrominance information separately Some color images are represented in color spaces that enable direct separation of the luminance and chrominance components for example Lab YCrCb etc Other images including RGB images that Neat Image takes as input have to be converted to another representation to enable separation of the luminance and chrominance components Neat Image applies an internal color space conversion to achieve that Once luminance and chrominance components of the input image are separated Neat Image can treat them individually Neat Image provides separate luminance and chrominance settings in the noise filter see the figure on the right In the Sta
13. Noise Profile box to estimate the accuracy of the profile The Quality indicator shows how accurate and complete is the noise analysis itself The Match indicator shows how closely this profile corresponds to current the input image Both indicators have to show high values for the noise reduction to be accurate 12 1999 2014 by Neat Image team ABSoft All rights reserved 26 Sep 14 User Guide Neat Image plug in for Photoshop Win Adjust noise reduction amounts Use the Noise Reduction Amounts Luminance and Chrominance sliders You can vary the noise reduction amount for both luminance and chrominance component of the input image The higher a certain noise reduction amount the more of the detected noise is removed in the corresponding image component Be careful setting the noise reduction amounts too high especially in the As human vision is not very sensitive to variations of colors strong filtration in the chrominance component does not noticeably distort image but luminance component may lead to loss of fine details and efficiently removes color noise unnaturally looking over smooth plastic like results Too low amounts may be not enough to sufficiently reduce the objectionable part of the noise You have to balance the noise reduction amounts most importantly the amount of noise reduction in the luminance component to get the result that looks best to your eyes Use preview As you make change
14. Sep 14 User Guide Neat Image plug in for Photoshop Win several pre built profiles to help Auto Match find the most matching noise profile as described above You can adjust settings of S mart Profile function in Preferences To manually select a noise profile from a pre built profile set Click the Load Profile button or use the Profile gt Load Profile menu item Then select a profile in the Load Device Noise Profile dialog Or Click the drop down button in the Device Noise Profile box to open the popup menu with all available profiles and then select one of the available profiles Please note that you have either to build your own profiles or download some pre built profiles and place them to the Neat Image s Profile folder to make this drop down button and popup menu truly work By default the Profile folder is located in the Documents folder Documents Neat Image for Photoshop Profiles If you build or download some pre built profiles place unzip the profile set if necessary them to the above folder Neat Image will recognize and display those profiles in the popup menu to help you quickly load any of them when needed When manually selecting a profile for input image use the profile file names and sub folder structure to guide your search See Preparing profile set for different device modes Stage III Structuring profile set page 29 for more information on profile set structuring To additionally
15. always use it when the action is played or smart filter 1s re applied e Auto Match The plug in will use Auto Match to search and load the best matching profile s for input image s from the profile set on the disk e Auto Profile The plug in will use Auto Profile to build new noise profile s for the input image s when the action is played or smart filter is re applied The input image s must contain enough flat featureless noise only areas suitable for noise analysis o Smart Profile Auto Profile and Auto Match Neat Image will use both Auto Profile and Auto Match to prepare two noise profiles and then will select the better of two resulting profiles This provides higher overall quality at expense of slightly longer processing time To be fully efficient this option also needs a pre built set of noise profiles for Auto Match to work You can configure the behavior of the S mart P rofile function using the settings link e Auto Fine Tune The plug in will additionally apply Auto Fine Tune to adapt the loaded profile s to the input image s to make the profile s more accurate This option is available when you select Use Current Profile or Auto Match i Using the plug in in Photoshop actions and smart filters is only supported in Neat Image Pro plug in Detailed feature map page 40 Also smart filters are only supported by the most recent versions of Photoshop For this option to work several noise profiles should be ava
16. fine tune the loaded or matched profile You may want to additionally fine tune the profile after it has been loaded either automatically using Auto Match or manually using Load Profile Fine tuning the profile to the current image usually makes the profile more accurate and better reflecting the image s noise properties Please note that you do not need to fine tune a profile if you have built it using Auto Profile Auto Profile automatically applies fine tuning so you do not need to repeat it Click li Auto FineTune the Auto Fine Tune button or use the Profile gt Auto Fine Tune menu item to fine tune the profile to the current input image There is no need to select any area in the input image because Auto Fine Tune automatically analyzes the whole image Once you have loaded the profile that matches the input image or you have just built a new profile specifically for the current input image proceed to process the image in the Stages II V below 5 3 Stage Ill Adjust filter settings As soon as the noise profile is ready you can use the noise and sharpening filters These filters have several adjustable settings The default settings usually produce good results You may want to additionally vary the filter settings to achieve the filtration results that look best to your eyes Switch to the Noise Filter Settings tab 5 3 1 Use preview when adjusting filter settings The image viewer in the Noise Filter Setti
17. frequency components Examining the components helps to find flat featureless image areas for noise analysis Also that allows to visually compare the original and filtered version of each component and to find optimum filter settings for the corresponding component easier and faster Normal Use Viewer mode button in the viewer toolbar to select the desired Examine individual channel and frequency components of the image check the presence of noise in individual components Working in the Noise Filter Settings tab you can use the separately displayed components to identify those components that do not get enough or get too much noise reduction and adjust the corresponding filter settings m viewer mode O ro The viewer mode will change accordingly and will display the image Y vYcrco components separately or as one composite image En ai ta 1 3 You can also adjust the brightness of the viewer to easier see image details and noise in very dark or very bright areas of the image Use Ll the viewer brightness controls in the viewer toolbar to adjust and or reset the viewer brightness to better see the noise and details in very dark or very bright areas of the image Please note that this adjustment does not change the underlying image data in any way The adjustment only affects the image viewer 1 e the way the images are displayed in it 8 2 Navigator The image viewer has an additional Navigat
18. made profiles built by other people may produce less than optimal results with your images because of possible slight differences in noise properties of cameras scanners as well as due to different imaging processing workflows used Therefore we advise to use ready made noise profiles built by others only as a starting point to learn how to use Neat Image To achieve the best results consider building your own profiles as explained in the subsections below 7 2 Building a profile for a device mode standard profiling procedure In this subsection you will find out how to build a single noise profile for an image produced in a certain shooting or scanning mode such a profile can also be called a profile for a certain mode of the device Building a new noise profile generally consists of three stages Stage I Building a profile Stage II Documenting the profile Stage III Saving the profile The Stage I building a profile can be done with the use of a regular image for example the image that you want to denoise or any other regular image or with the use of the Calibration Target These two cases are described as two alternative versions of the Stage I Stage I Case of building a profile using a regular image Stage I Case of building a profile using the Calibration Target You may want to follow the case of building a noise profile using a regular image if you only need a single use profile to process selected input ima
19. E DrOMIOS ticerscecsaccccesesctacccenenencencuaat we can senaececensucasescemstestsecctstescatieresncsances 21 VA Gets ready made MOIS Prot CSviscrors sii ai ES AA DAA AA AAA AA 21 7 2 Building a profile for a device mode standard profiling procedure ccccccccecceccceeeeeeeeesesseessseeeeeeees 21 7 3 Preparing profile set for different device modes oocccccccccccccnnononooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnonnnnanannnnnnns 21 TA UsiNg Noise Prol idad ir 31 BAdditional OO Su io 32 Sl Al mative modes OL MAGE VIEW CF caia vs seizes A dt a a 32 S2 ECN tc i cha E NA 32 So Prone VIEW A eit Sack de Nass ltlehe eSas 32 DF MeL CVO ING S ica a a a e seas ae EE 33 Os General pieren e aa a aa aaa 33 D2 Pronina prel re nc eS 1 SAS SAA ae ta ca al A 33 OD Matene prere re NCES ds ds idad lat 34 ga Perronnance Pretoria sitiada 34 SR 35 TO Exa Mpe S oai e E E a a 36 10 1 Imasesto build a noise profile ui A T a T a 36 W Filtatonmres l sarea eG aA EE E E A E E AEA 38 11 Questions and ANSWEES 0 is 39 PLA EA QUESOS Ai sis 39 11 2 Filtration related questions idad ld did 39 12 FDS ANG WICKS iia 40 Fi Partial TIEA O did tdi dt 40 13 NOMAN ans a da 40 SE ESS UG S ACL IESG tr e lea 40 AR A A NN II II II A Pe ee a 40 IS Detailed teatre Ma A A A A AS NITO 40 ISA A EE A A A NA A A acutnas ceed 41 Da Weal into rm Mr EE a 41 Gy TR COS TRACOM PICO OOO O E RES 42 SALARIO WISd Merit A AAA AAA 42 VAINA ii ida 43 7
20. Examples of bad areas that contain visible details NOT RECOMMENDED because this area contains a detail corner junction of wall and ceiling UNACCEPTABLE because this area contains many details NOT RECOMMENDED because this area contains some details clouds this area is from another image 26 Sep 14 1999 2014 by Neat Image team ABSoft All rights reserved 37 User Guide Neat Image plug in for Photoshop Win 10 2 Filtration results Here are some examples of Neat Image performance Input Output This 1s a small portion of a digital photo taken with a compact digital camera The original image contains easily visible noise In this case the source of noise is the camera s image sensor CCD working in high ISO mode Input This image was also taken with a digital camera Along with the strong high ISO noise there is an image degradation caused by the JPEG compression Even though Neat Image tries to do its best to clean up such images please avoid using strong JPEG compression See more filtration examples in the Neat Image web page http www neatimage com win photoshop examples html 38 1999 2014 by Neat Image team ABSoft All rights reserved 26 Sep 14 User Guide Neat Image plug in for Photoshop Win 11 Questions and answers 11 1 General questions gt O O gt What is the difference between Demo Home and Pro plug in The Demo plug in is li
21. Il page 9 and additionally fine tune the device noise profile or simply rebuild the profile from scratch Adjusting sharpening settings in Advanced mode optional The sharpening filter is designed to increase image sharpness without increasing the noise strength The default values of the sharpening settings should produce satisfactory results when sharpening is enabled for any of the channel components but you are encouraged to vary the settings to find values that produce the desired level of sharpness Zero sharpening amounts will not sharpen the image at all The non zero sharpening amounts will apply sharpening of the specified strength Use sharpening controls for different frequency components to sharpen fine medium or large image details As with any other sharpening method you have to balance the amounts to avoid over sharpening Use the preview when adjusting the sharpening settings Select color channels to be sharpened Sharpening Use checkboxes in the Sharpening section Y Aa Eo Bi conservative Usually you only want to sharpen the luminance channel Y tigh Wy g 100 md NA 0 Select sharpening mode Low 0 Check the Conservative checkbox to enable more accurate sharpening which produces much less halo effect around sharpened image details Adjust sharpening amounts Use the High Mid and Low sliders in the Sharpening section Specify how much sharpening should be applied to each frequency component of th
22. Neat Image plug in for Photoshop Win To make images look better User guide Document version 7 6 September 26 2014 O 1999 2014 by Neat Image team ABSoft All rights reserved User Guide Neat Image plug in for Photoshop Win Table of contents La INTOQUCIO Ni cirio rias 3 LAOS Wi A A AA AAA AER AE E ASA E EA 3 A EE seaman ena duneute 3 ES IRCQUIECIN CHES a A A a 4 Ze RCV CONCEDIS ii 5 2 1 What it can do functionality of Neat Image sorcier ia E EE EEEE 5 Ze When IE WOLKS types Or INDUL Mao Sea tddi 5 3 MSstaling PUMA dd 6 4 Filtration process overview id 7 41 Overview ot Neat maso TUIAON PLOCESS uti it a LA AN AAA 7 42 Rumi Neat imace on sample ae eta la a 8 5 Filtration process details unn o 9 5 1 Stage L Invoke the plug in from PRO OSO ai daa 9 Solace I Prepare adevice Noise Proe srecni ARA Ad 9 1 taco EAE Se CIN S E E E AE E E oie cias 11 5 4 Stage IV Adjust Action settings OptiONMal oooonccccccnnnccccnnonnnnnononncnnnnnnnnnnnononononnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnanionos 17 I oae APPI ET en a fuser en genatauatra ts eaeeAotuaduuatueaied Auetenes wngesd taba 18 6 Using plug in in actions and smart filters cocoonnnnnncnnnccnnnncnnnnonannnnnnnnanannnennnos 19 6 1 Configuring Neat Image in actions and smart filters ccccoooonooonooonccnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnononononnnnnnnncnnnnnnnnnnnnanananinnns 19 6 2 Neat Image m action based batch processing iii ar a a a AA 20 T DEVICE NOIS
23. ameras Neat Image is able to automatically extract the crucial information about the Neat Image plug in for Photoshop Win Device Noise Profile 6 tal 9 E950 150225 2bpp 800x1200 WB Defaul Device Name and Mode NIKON E950 Software v381 79 ISO level 225 Compression 2 bits pixel Exposure time 0 50 sec camera mode from the EXIF data fields of the analyzed image and put this information to the noise profile you can see that in the Device Name and Mode fields in the Device Noise Profile box white balance Default If Neat Image has not automatically placed any information to the Device Name and Mode fields after noise analysis you can fill out these fields manually Quality 73 Match 100 Use the Device Name and Mode fields in the Device Noise Profile box Here you can specify the model of the image acquisition device and describe the device mode which can be something like the data in the picture on the right About the Device name and mode notes It is highly recommended to specify these details to keep record of devices device modes and corresponding device noise profiles that you use The noise characteristics of any two devices can be extremely different Even a single device in different modes can produce significantly different noise Therefore it is always better to use separate noise profiles for different devices and device modes to avoid inaccurate filtration and artifacts Commenti
24. an efficiently reduce the noise in the image EF Device Noise Profile Po 1 Inthe Device Noise Profile tab click the Load Profile button 2 Then in the Load Device Noise Profile dialog navigate to the folder where the noise profile has been unzipped and select the SampleProfile dnp file Now the sample noise profile is loaded and Neat Image is almost ready to filter the image Usually you would adjust the filter settings at this stage To make things easier for the first run of Neat Image we have prepared a sample preset with good settings to process the sample image Stage 3 Load the sample filter preset in Neat Image plug in z2 Noise Filter Settings 1 Switch to the Noise Filter Settings tab and click the Load Filter Preset button in the Filter Settings box 2 Then in the Load Filter Preset dialog navigate to the folder where the sample filter preset has been unzipped and select the SamplePreset nfp file Now the sample filter preset is loaded and the filter settings are adjusted to process the sample image Stage 4 Apply the filter to the image l Click in the bottom of the plug in window and wait until the image processing is completed Processing may take a few seconds After that the filtered image is displayed in Photoshop Notice that the noise especially in the sky has been significantly reduced while the real image details have been preserved Please be awar
25. arge This is the minimum size the recommended size is 128x128 pixels or more you can resize the selection frame 2 Analyze selected area gt Click E AutoProfle the Auto Profile button Neat Image will automatically analyze the selected area and build a noise profile 3 Additionally manually fine tune the profile Fine tuning uses additional flat featureless frame areas to make the noise profile more accurate You must manually select and analyze several such areas one after another 1 Find and select a uniform featureless area Scroll pan zoom the frame in the viewer in the Device Noise Profile tab to find a new uniform area The size of an area may be from 16x16 to 256x256 pixels Using larger areas makes fine tuning more accurate The selection edges will change their thickness according to the selection size 1 You can see some examples of uniform featureless image areas in the section Examples page 36 2 You can enable Advanced mode using the Tools gt Advanced Mode menu item 26 Sep 14 1999 2014 by Neat Image team ABSoft All rights reserved 23 User Guide Neat Image plug in for Photoshop Win 2 Analyze selected area with Manual Fine Tune Click the Manual Fine Tune button or use the Profile gt Fine Tune Using Selected Area menu item The analysis results will be shown in the noise profile equalizer the graphs of the equalizer will change some of the values see the picture on t
26. bit difficult for software By analyzing found or specified featureless areas the Auto Profile function in Neat Image builds a profile which describes the noise in these areas Using this profile Neat Image s noise filter can efficiently reduce noise in the whole image When several such profiles for different device modes are available the Auto Match function can automatically select the profile that matches given input image In this way you can skip noise analysis and simply re use one of profiles built earlier Smart Profile combines the power of Auto Profile and Auto Match by preparing two candidate profiles and then selecting the better one for actual image processing This improves automated image processing and helps to achieve great results in more cases The noise filter processes images in three spatial frequency ranges This makes possible reducing noise in one frequency range even if details are present in other ranges The filter can also selectively process any of the color channels components of the input images In addition to the noise filter there is the smart sharpening filter which only sharpens image details without increasing the level of noise This filter also uses the noise profile to tell noise from details so applying the noise and sharpening filters together saves time and produces better overall results 2 2 When it works types of input images Neat Image is designed to reduce noise in images produced b
27. de Neat Image plug in for Photoshop Win Or Click the drop down button in the Filter Settings box to open the popup menu with all available presets and then select one of them There are several pre written filter presets in the following sub folder in your Documents folder Documents Weat Image for Photoshop Presets Please explore these presets to see what combinations and values of the noise and sharpening filters settings can be used to solve typical tasks names of the presets explain these tasks 5 4 Stage IV Adjust Action settings optional At this point in the workflow the noise profile is ready filter settings are adjusted and therefore the filter 1s ready to be applied to the image However before applying the filter you may want to adjust the Action Setup settings accessible via the Action Setup button These settings specify which noise profile and filter preset should be used by the plug in on startup when you use the plug in next time For example you can have Neat Image automatically build a new noise profile using Auto Profile when you open the plug in The following options are available for noise profiles e Use Current Profile Neat Image will use the currently loaded built profile e Auto Match Neat Image will use Auto Match to find and load the best matching profile from the Ed Action Setup profile set on the disk Device Noise Profile 5 Use Current Profile o Auto Profile
28. e Calibration Target is specially designed to enable easy profiling of various imaging devices It can be used to build a single profile for a certain device mode or a set of profiles for different modes Follow the steps below to prepare a single profile using the Calibration Target Step 1 Preparing the Calibration Target To use the Calibration Target go to menu Tools gt Calibration Target and then click Eb Display target the Display target button or download the image of the Target from the Neat Image web page http www neatimage com win photoshop testtarget html There are two ways of using the Calibration Target you can open it on the screen and take a shot with a digital or film camera depending on your workflow or you can print it out and shoot the hardcopy Shooting the Calibration Target off the screen is faster especially with a digital camera However be careful when shooting it off the screen of a CRT monitor because you may occasionally capture scan bands These bands may spoil a part of the shot If you cannot avoid these bands prepare a printed version of the Calibration Target or shot it off an LCD monitor which does not produce this effect Also try to avoid glares when using a monitor with a glass or glossy screen Case of shooting the Calibration Target off the screen Open the Calibration Target image on the screen menu Tools gt Calibration Target and then click the Display target button The
29. e direct access to the device hardware you can adjust its shooting mode and take test shots Moreover using your own set of profiles makes noise reduction more accurate because such profiles better reflect the specifics of the camera or scanner as well as the workflow you use When building a set of profiles please follow the guidelines below that will help you structure the profile set in such a way as to make consequent reuse of the set easy for you 7 3 1 Stage I Selecting device parameters for profile set To build a set of profiles for particular camera or scanner you must identify the device parameters that affect the noise characteristics and that you will take into account during profiling There may be many device parameters but not all of them influence image noise and those that do differ by the strength of their influence Naturally you are only interested in those parameters that appreciably affect noise Different noise profiles should be prepared for different values of important parameters so you have to identify these parameters in the first place The tables below describe the parameters that appreciably affect noise characteristics from the most to the less important ones of digital cameras and scanners Digital camera parameters in the order of decreasing importance ISO rate 50 100 200 400 etc depends on a camera Camera noise reduction High Normal Low etc depends on a camera Sharpness adjustment
30. e from the analyzed image area into device noise profile dnp file This will increase the size of the dnp file but will also improve the compatibility with the future versions of the software Neat Image will be able to re build the profile 26 Sep 14 1999 2014 by Neat Image team ABSoft All rights reserved 33 User Guide Neat Image plug in for Photoshop Win using the saved noise sample Show warnings about selected image area Enable this option to let Neat Image display warnings about selected image area during profiling For example Neat Image may warn you about clipping or non uniformity detected in the selected area thus helping you select a better area for profiling Smart Profile Smart Profile is one of the possible ways to prepare a noise profile to process an input image S mart Profile uses both Auto Profile and Auto Match with Auto Fine Tune to prepare two candidate profiles and then selects the better of two profiles Use the settings in the Smart Profile box to configure the behavior of the Smart Profile function Automatically select the best profile Use this option to let Neat Image automatically decide which noise profile to use Prefer profile prepared by Auto Profile Let Neat Image preferably select the profile prepared by Auto Profile when 1t can find a good area for analysis in the input image When the area is not very good then Neat Image will use the profile prepared by Auto Match with Auto F
31. e image The standard sharpening settings used by many graphic editors are 100 for high frequency and 0 for medium and low frequencies used by default As soon as you are happy with the preview results regarding both noise reduction and sharpening proceed to save the filter settings into a preset see the subsection below or directly to the Stage V Apply filter page 18 5 3 5 Save filter settings into a preset optional To save the current filter settings into a preset Click the Save filter settings as preset button pink disk in the Filter Settings box or use the Filter gt Save Filter Preset menu item In the Save Filter Preset As dialog box specify the name of the file to save the preset The filter presets are stored as nfp files Saved filter preset includes the noise filter and sharpening settings By re opening a preset you can reproduce exactly the same filter settings later on Also you can exchange filter presets with other users of Neat Image Together a device noise profile and a filter preset can be used to precisely reproduce the filtration results To load a previously saved filter preset Click the Load filter preset button pink disk in the Filter Preset box or use the Filter gt Load Filter Preset menu item In the Load Filter Preset dialog box specify the name of the filter preset to be loaded 16 O 1999 2014 by Neat Image team ABSoft All rights reserved 26 Sep 14 User Gui
32. e that the sample noise profile and sample filter preset supplied with the test kit are suitable only for images taken with that particular digital camera working in that particular mode Neat Image can perform similar noise reduction on images captured or acquired by any other camera or scanner working in any mode To be able to do that Neat Image needs device noise profiles that describe the noise characteristics of those devices The software can build these profiles on the fly using the Auto Profile function Also you can find ready made noise profiles for many cameras and scanners in the Profiles section of the Neat Image web page http www neatimage com win photoshop profiles html The next sections Filtration process details page 9 and Device noise profiles page 21 contain detailed descriptions of the filtration and profiling processes There are also examples of profiling and filtration in the Neat Image web page http www neatimage com win photoshop examples html 8 1999 2014 by Neat Image team ABSoft All rights reserved 26 Sep 14 User Guide Neat Image plug in for Photoshop Win 5 Filtration process details The Neat Image plug in can be used in Photoshop to process one or several images This section describes the key stages of using the Neat Image plug in to process one image There 1s also a way to automatically process many images see the Using plug in in actions and smart filters section page 19 5 1
33. easier and therefore recommended for beginners In difficult cases for example if Neat Image cannot automatically find a uniform featureless area in analyzed image automatic profiling may not work well or may produce less than perfect results You can always override automatics and use semi automatic or manual profiling Make sure you use the Device Noise Profile tab Case of automatic profiling To analyze noise properties Neat Image uses uniform image areas that contain noise but no visible or important details With automatic profiling Neat Image tries to find one such area automatically and then uses this area to analyze image noise Click Auto Profie the Auto Profile button in the toolbar or use the Profile gt Auto Profile with Regular Image menu item or press F2 Neat Image will try to automatically find image areas suitable for analysis and will analyze them first the primary selected area and then the rest of the image If the primary selected area shown in viewer indeed contains no visible details then the resulting noise profile will be accurate To be sure check the profile Quality indicator in the bottom of the Device Noise Profile box A profile built using a uniform and featureless image area will show a high value in this indicator 22 1999 2014 by Neat Image team ABSoft All rights reserved 26 Sep 14 User Guide Neat Image plug in for Photoshop Win If the profile quality is high for exam
34. eat Image for Photoshop in 32 bit Windows or C Program Files x86 Neat Image for Photoshop if you use 64 bit Windows into Plugins or Plug Ins subfolder inside the Photoshop Photoshop Elements folder Then re start Photoshop and find Neat Image in the menu Filter gt Neat Image gt Reduce Noise Corel Paint Shop Pro In Paint Shop Pro open the File menu select Preferences gt File locations gt Plug ins PSP8 or newer Preferences gt File locations PSP7 or Preferences gt Plug in Filters PSP4 6 and select the Neat Image installation folder usually C Program Files Neat Image for Photoshop in 32 bit Windows or C Program Files x86 Neat Image for Photoshop if you use 64 bit Windows Press OK and then check the menu Effects gt Plug in Filters gt Neat Image gt Reduce Noise Other image editors plug in hosts Please refer to the documentation of the corresponding plug in host to find the correct way to install i If the language of Photoshop is not English you may have to use another Plug Ins folder for example Modules externes in French Zusatzmodule in German version Insteekmodules in Dutch Plug In in Italian etc 6 1999 2014 by Neat Image team ABSoft All rights reserved 26 Sep 14 User Guide Neat Image plug in for Photoshop Win a third party Photoshop compatible plug in 8BF type You can find the Neat Image plug in itself NeatImage 8bf in the Neat Image installation folder
35. ed data the higher the overall profile quality is You can improve the profile quality by additional fine tuning e Noise Levels these figures show the actual noise levels measured by the noise analyzers during profiling There are the overall noise level and noise levels in channel and frequency components These figures are a good indication of how noisy an image source is e Image Metadata this box contains the EXIF information associated with the image used to build this profile This information is used by Neat Image to find a profile that matches an input image 9 Preferences There are several preferences that adjust the behavior of the Neat Image plug in Use the Tools gt Preferences menu item to open the Preferences dialog box 9 1 General preferences Auto zoom to fit on image open Check this option to make the image viewer automatically adjust zoom level to fit the image into the window Show hints over interface controls This option switches on off the hints The hints are displayed when the mouse pointer is placed over any control in the Neat Image interface Color theme Normal brightness Neat Image will display its interface elements using the current color theme of the OS Reduced brightness Select this option to switch Neat Image to a custom color theme with reduced brightness 9 2 Profiling preferences Save noise samples in profiles Enable this option to make Neat Image save a noise sampl
36. eduction is applied to the image elements that are weaker than 250 of the noise profile s noise level Noise reduction amounts can be in the range from 0 none of the detected noise is removed to 100 all the detected noise is removed By default the noise filter removes 100 of detected noise in all but the luminance Y channel where only 60 of detected noise is removed Decreasing the noise reduction amounts can have a positive effect if the input image contains some natural noise For example when you filter images of asphalt sand or anything else that contains fine natural noise like features it may be helpful to reduce amounts down to 30 50 Our experience shows that these values generally provide a good balance between preserving image details and noise removal All measured noise levels are shown in the Profile Viewer use the menu Profile gt Profile Viewer to open it Use the Quality and Match indicators in the Device Noise Profile box to estimate the accuracy of the profile The Q uality indicator shows how accurate and complete is the noise profile itself The Match indicator shows how closely this profile corresponds to the input image Both indicators have to show high values for the noise reduction to be accurate 14 1999 2014 by Neat Image team ABSoft All rights reserved 26 Sep 14 User Guide Neat Image plug in for Photoshop Win Adjust noise reduction amounts Use the Noise Reduction Amoun
37. er controls that are available in the Standard mode and Advanced mode you can select the mode using the Tools gt Standard mode and Advanced Mode menu items The Standard mode described above provides a simple control set recommended for beginners who just start using Neat Image The Advanced mode provides the most complete control set with maximum manual control over noise profiling and filtration processes The Advanced mode 1s recommended for power users If you want to use the Advanced mode then please read this sub section otherwise skip it and proceed to page 16 for the next stage As compared with the Standard mode the Advanced mode offers a more extensive set of filter controls i We recommend disabling the sharpening filter when adjusting the noise filter To disable the sharpening filter set the Sharpening Amount to 0 26 Sep 14 1999 2014 by Neat Image team ABSoft All rights reserved 13 User Guide Neat Image plug in for Photoshop Win There are also two filters noise reduction filter and sharpening filter but these have more settings now Please follow the guidelines below to adjust both filters Adjusting noise filter settings in Advanced mode In Advanced mode the noise filter has separate settings for all frequency and channel components of the input image There are also pairs of noise level noise reduction amount controls for each of these image components The meaning of each noise level noise red
38. ersion of 17 with enabled hyperthreading etc If the computer includes two physical CPUs then the number of cores is correspondingly higher Ideally using all cores should provide the best overall performance In some cases however processing speed may be even higher 1f fewer cores are used especially on CPUs with hyperthreading For example using fewer than all 8 virtual cores in 17 is in some cases faster so you may want to test different values of this setting GPU In this box yon can specify which of the available computation capable GPU devices CUDA capable NVIDIA cards and or supported OpenCL capable AMD ATI cards should be used for image processing in addition to CPU or instead of CPU When you have one or more GPUs you can allow Neat Image to use it and specify how much GPU memory may be used for Neat Image s image processing When you also have other software using the GPU you may want to reserve only a part of the GPU memory for Neat Image and leave the rest free for other purposes In any case you can try different values and see which setting gives the best results Benchmark Use the Benchmark button to measure the image processing speed with the current settings specified in the CPU and GPU boxes Optimize Use the Optimize button to open a specialized dialog designed to measure image processing speeds achieved with different combinations of the CPU and GPU settings It allows to automatically benchmark all poss
39. file Neat Image is looking for a flat uniform featureless area in the input image In difficult cases Neat Image may have trouble finding a uniform featureless area in the input image and then the auto selected area will contain some important image details In such a case move the selection to an area that does not contain any image details you can make a new selection or resize the old one and then click the same Auto Profile button again After the profile is built check the Quality indicator in the Device Noise Profile box A profile built using a uniform and featureless image area will show a high value in this indicator If the profile quality is high for example higher than 75 then you can be sure that the noise profile is accurate In this case consider the noise profile ready and proceed to Stage III Adjust filter settings page 11 If the quality 1s not high try to select another uniform image area and use Auto Profile once again That may not help still especially 1f the input image contains only a few featureless areas In this case consider building a noise profile using an alternative image or special test image prepared with the Calibration Target Please see the Device noise profiles section page 21 to learn how to use the Calibration Target to build device noise profiles You can also try to load some pre built profile using one of the methods described below Auto Match select matching noise profile from a pre built pro
40. file set Click the Auto Match button or use the Profile gt Auto Match menu item The Auto Match function uses the EXIF data fields of the input image to automatically select and load the device noise profile that matches the device mode of the image The most matching profile 1s selected from profiles stored in a special folder By default this folder is in your Documents Documents Weat Image for Photoshop Profiles Auto Match will look for matching profiles in that folder as well as all 1ts subfolders where you can place profiles built by you or downloaded from the Internet After a profile is loaded by Auto Match the degree of match between the current input image and loaded noise profile is displayed in the Device Noise Profile box Higher Match values mean better match leading to more accurate filtration Smart Profile prepare two profiles and select the better one Use the Profile gt S mart Profile menu item or press the F5 key Smart Profile uses both Auto Profile and Auto Match with Auto Fine Tune to prepare two candidate profiles and then selects the better of two profiles For Smart Profile to be fully efficient the input image must contain flat featureless areas with noise for Auto Profile to analyze and also there must be 1 f You can check and adjust the location of that folder using the menu Tools gt P references gt Matching 10 1999 2014 by Neat Image team ABSoft All rights reserved 26
41. ge In this case the input image or an alternative regular image from the same series it should be produced by the same device working in the same mode should contain enough uniform featureless areas for noise analysis A uniform area with minor variation in all channels of the image may be overcast sky clear sky without clouds and birds or any other part of the image where there are no visually perceptible details except the noise Neat Image needs uniform featureless areas of around 128x128 pixels the minimum 1 l You can check and adjust the location of the Profile folder using the menu Tools gt P references gt Folders 26 Sep 14 1999 2014 by Neat Image team ABSoft All rights reserved 21 User Guide Neat Image plug in for Photoshop Win is 32x32 pixels You can see some examples of such areas in the Examples section page 32 If the input image does not contain such areas and you have no suitable alternative regular image that contains such areas you can prepare a special test image and follow the case of building a noise profile using the Calibration Target That is also recommended if you want to prepare a reusable noise profile for a certain mode of your camera or scanner 7 2 1 Stage I Case of building a profile using a regular image To build a noise profile using a regular image you have to take 2 steps Step 1 Preparing a regular image for noise analysis Step 2 Analyzing the image noise Ste
42. he Filter Settings box Check the Smooth edges checkbox to make edges and lines look smoother Check the High quality checkbox to enable the higher quality noise reduction filter This will slightly slow down processing but will deliver the most accurate results in return Check the High resolution checkbox to enable the higher resolution noise filter This may be useful when processing images with very fine details that should be better preserved by the filter Use preview As you make changes to the noise filter parameters check preview on different parts of the image to get a better feeling for the results of noise reduction If the noise filtration looks too aggressive try to decrease the noise reduction amounts for appropriate channels or frequency components If the noise filtration is not sufficient then increase the amounts Adjust noise levels only when necessary Usually it 1s not necessary to change the noise levels if the noise profile is accurate You only have to adjust the noise levels if you see that some noise elements are not reduced even if you set the noise reduction amounts to 100 Such residual noise elements are usually caused by inaccurate noise profile providing inaccurate estimations of actual noise levels This may be compensated by adjusting increasing the noise levels in the filter settings Use the Noise Levels High Mid Low Y Cr Cb sliders The noise filter has access to three fre
43. he right You can switch from one channel to another in the equalizer to better see a specific channel s 200 graph or select to show them all together The goal of manual fine tuning is to fill the equalizer with 100 measured values shown as graph color knots in all points of the graphs The previous steps specifically the Auto P rofile 0 function may have already filled some of the values Manual fine tuning can further improve the analysis by filling out the still missing or interpolated values shown as yellow knots and or making some of already measured values more precise ue 10 3 Repeat 1 2 above with other uniform areas of different brightness To make the device noise profile more accurate fine tune it using several uniform image areas Select areas of different brightness for best results Try to choose and analyze uniform areas to cover all or most elements of the equalizer in all its color channels The more elements of profile are analyzed the higher is the quality of the profile 4 Complete fine tuning using Auto Complete Click the Auto Complete button or use the Profile gt Auto Complete menu item to automatically complete the fine tuning by adjusting the unmeasured values using interpolation based on the measured data At this point the profile is ready Proceed to Stage II Documenting noise profile page 26 7 2 2 Stage Case of building a profile using the Calibration Target Th
44. ible combinations of settings and to identify the best combination This is the easiest way to optimize the performance of Neat Image for specific CPU and GPU hardware 9 5 Folders preferences Profile folder Select the folder where Neat Image must look for device noise profiles This should be the topmost folder of all the sub folders with device noise profiles Neat Image will display all profiles stored in all subfolders of the specified folder in the popup menu in the Device noise profile panel of the plug in window and in other parts of Neat Image By default the Profile folder is located in your Documents folder Documents Neat Image for Photoshop Profiles You can select another location to store and use your Neat Image profiles if you prefer 26 Sep 14 1999 2014 by Neat Image team ABSoft All rights reserved 35 User Guide Neat Image plug in for Photoshop Win Preset folder Select the folder where Neat Image must look for filter presets This should be the topmost folder of all the sub folders with filter presets Neat Image will display all presets stored in all subfolders of the specified folder in the popup menu in the Filter Settings panel of the plug in window and in other parts of Neat Image By default the Preset folder is located in your Documents folder Documents Neat Image for Photoshop Presets You can select another location to store and use your Neat Image presets if you prefer 10 Examples
45. ically select the better of two profiles 4 Load Profile to manually select a suitable profile from a pre built set of profiles The first option is often the easiest one provided the input image includes uniform featureless areas that contain noise but no visible or important details Auto Profile will try to automatically find such image areas and analyze them to build a noise profile When the image does contain featureless areas this automatic way of preparing a noise profile is the most accurate and therefore recommended If the input image includes no such areas another image with featureless areas can be used to build a profile The other options are available once you have a pre built reusable set of profiles You can find some pre built profile sets for different cameras and scanners in e Profiles section of the Neat Image web page http www neatimage com win photoshop profiles html e Device noise profiles section of the Neat Image community forum http www neatimage net forum viewforum php f 5 e Other digital imaging forums and web pages from users of Neat Image If you cannot find a pre built set of profiles for your camera or scanner you can easily build such profiles yourself Moreover please be aware that using profiles built by other people may produce less than optimal results with your images because of possible slight differences in noise properties of cameras scanners as well as due to different image processing wo
46. ilable on the hard drive The profiles should be stored in the folder specified in Preferences you can check and modify its location using the menu Tools gt P references gt Matching gt P rofile Matching These can be profiles downloaded from the Neat Image online profile library or from other sources You can also use profiles built by you The input images as well as profiles in the profile set should contain the EXIF information to make profile image matching possible Most noise profiles available in the profile library in Neat Image website do contain the EXIF data New noise profiles built with the latest versions of Neat Image plug in will also contain the EXIF data from the images used for profiling Profiles built with older versions of Neat Image plug in may not contain the EXIF data so it may be useful to re build them using the latest version 26 Sep 14 1999 2014 by Neat Image team ABSoft All rights reserved 19 User Guide Neat Image plug in for Photoshop Win The action or smart filter will use the filter preset created or loaded into plug in at the time of action recording or configuring the smart filter This filter preset will be recorded into the action or smart filter and will then always be used when the action is played or smart filter 1s re applied When used in an action the Preset parameter contains the name of that preset The preset name is also shown in the Filter Settings box in the main plug in window Y
47. iltered image Presence of many residual noise elements is usually a consequence of using a poorly built noise profile or a profile built for another device and or device mode Using a more accurate profile usually helps The crystal like artifacts usually these are the residual JPEG compression artifacts look like thin lines in the filtered image They can be easily eliminated by increasing the high frequency noise level in the filter settings Filtered image looks plastic Why The reason is that too much filtration was applied Let Neat Image keep some noise to produce natural looking results Adjust the noise reduction amounts for example reduce the noise reduction amount in the luminance channel to 50 or lower Also make sure the device noise profile does match the image processed Using an incorrectly chosen or poorly built profile can either produce plastic looking results or leave residual artifacts see the previous question How to filter only the color noise not the brightness noise Set the value of the luminance Y noise reduction amount to 0 This will disable filtration in the luminance brightness image component Is processing via Neat Image best done before or after any other processing i e tonal color correction Such operations as tonal color correction are quite conservative from the standpoint of noise 1 e they do not significantly change the noise characteristics of the image Therefore filtering befo
48. ination of device parameters in your list Then place all resulting image files Jpg t1ff png to a new folder and its subfolders if necessary on the hard drive for example Documents Target Images 2 Preparing profiles To prepare profiles using the images of the Calibration Target 1 Select the Tools gt Batch Profiler menu item to open the Batch Profiler window 2 In the Batch Profiler window specify the folder with images of the Calibration Target and the folder where the Batch Profiler should save prepared device noise profiles 3 Click the Start button to initiate profiling process When profiling 1s finished new noise profiles are saved in the selected target folder 4 Click the Close button to close the Batch Profiler window As the result you have a set of noise profiles several dnp files on the hard drive that can be further structured as described in the Stage III below 7 3 3 Stage Ill Structuring profile set In the Stage II you have prepared a set of profiles they are now saved on the disk You have assigned names to these profiles that reflect the device modes they correspond to For example profiles for Olympus C5050Z could be named like the following 7 Olympus C5050Z 7 disk folder C5050Z 180100 JPEG HQ SharpNormal 2560x1696 dnp C5050Z ISO100 JPEG HQ SharpNormal 2560x1920 dnp C5050Z C5050Z ISO100 JPEG SHQ SharpNormal 2560x1696 dnp ES C5050Z ISO 100 JPEG SHQ SharpNorma
49. ine Tune Prefer profile prepared by Auto Match and Auto Fine Tune Let Neat Image preferably select the profile prepared by Auto Match when it can find a matching profile among the pre built noise profiles even when Auto Profile provides a good profile as well 9 3 Matching preferences 9 3 1 Profile Matching Use profile matching preferences to adjust the way Neat Image matches noise profiles to input images Look for noise profiles in the following folder If you select this option then Neat Image will look for matching noise profiles in the specified folder If you have several sub folders with profiles select the topmost folder of all those subfolders to let Neat Image search in all of them By default the folder used to store profiles see the Folders gt Profile folder setting in the same Preferences window is used for matching You can use any other sub folder for profile matching as well Matching parameters priorities To automatically match profiles to the input image Neat Image compares the device parameters of the input image and candidate profiles selected from the folder specified by the above options Different parameters usually have to be matched with different priorities Using Matching parameters priorities controls you can select the priorities of such parameters as Input device ISO rate Compression Resolution Sharpness Exposure e Match fthe parameter should match exactly e High itis highly imp
50. l 2560x1920 dnp ISO 44 C5050Z 180200 JPEG HQ SharpNormal 2560x1696 dnp ISO rate of camera mode C5050Z 180200 JPEG HQ SharpNormal 2560x1920 dnp C5050Z 180200 JPEG SHQ SharpNormal 2560x1696 dnp JPEG SHQ JPEG HQ C5050Z ISO200 JPEG SHQ SharpNormal 2560x1920 dnp TIFF C5050Z ISO400 JPEG HQ SharpNormal 2560x1696 dnp file format and C5050Z 150400 JPEG HQ SharpNormal 2560x1920 dnp a ac ea C5050Z 180400 JPEG SHQ SharpNormal 2560x1696 dnp C5050Z 180400 JPEG SHQ SharpNormal 2560x1920 dnp C5050Z ISO100 TIFF SharpNormal 2288x1712 dnp C5050Z 180100 TIFF SharpNormal 2560x1696 dnp HHHH y HHHH C5050Z 180100 TIFF SharpNormal 2560x1920 dnp image size C5050Z 180200 TIFF SharpNormal 2288x1712 dnp C5050Z 180200 TIFF SharpNormal 2560x1696 dnp C5050Z 180200 TIFF SharpNormal 2560x1920 dnp C5050Z 180400 TIFF SharpNormal 2288x1712 dnp C5050Z 180400 TIFF SharpNormal 2560x1696 dnp C5050Z 180400 TIFF SharpNormal 2560x1920 dnp Sharp sharpness adjustment When the profiles are named like this manual selection of a suitable profile is simple You can check the device mode of the input image in Photoshop or in Neat Image using 2 button in the bottom of the image viewer and then select a profile for this mode from the popup menu 26 Sep 14 1999 2014 by Neat Image team ABSoft All rights reserved 29 User Guide Neat Image plug in for Photoshop Win The
51. le from a pre built set of profiles using Auto Match see page 10 to learn how to use Auto Match e To manually select the most suitable profile from a pre built profile set based on mode comments see page 10 for details When you select and load a profile in either way Neat Image shows the degree of match between the profile and input image This degree is shown by the Match indicator in the Device Noise Profile box The match degree is calculated on the basis of the image and profile s metadata the EXIF data fields If the profile s device mode is exactly the same as device mode used to capture the image then the match is 100 There 1s always 100 match between an image and profile built using this very image Neat Image displays that using the note AP in the Match indicator If the device modes of a profile and image are very close then the match degree 1s close to 100 The more different the device modes of profile and image are the lower the match degree 1s Use the match degree as an indication of match accuracy If the match degree is low then it is likely that building a new profile using the current input image or the Calibration Target shot in current device mode would produce better noise reduction results Obviously it is preferable to build a new noise profile for each new input image unless the image does not allow building a quality profile because it contains no large uniform areas for analysis because such a
52. lug in for Photoshop Win 7 Device nolse profiles A device noise profile or noise profile or simply profile describes the properties of noise produced by an imaging device e g digital camera scanner etc working in a certain mode Several noise profiles corresponding to different modes of a device constitute a profile set Neat Image can use profiles from such a set to process images produced in any of the modes covered by the set You can find some pre built noise profiles or build your own profiles for your camera or scanner Learn how to find build and use device noise profiles in Neat Image in the subsections 7 1 7 4 below 7 1 Getting ready made noise profiles You can find some pre built profile sets for different cameras and scanners in e Profiles section of the Neat Image web page http www neatimage com win photoshop profiles html e Device noise profiles section of the Neat Image community forum http www neatimage net forum viewforum php f 5 e Other digital imaging forums and web pages from users of Neat Image To use a profile set from one of these sources download the archive with profiles and unzip all profiles to the following folder and or its sub folder s in your Documents folder Documents Neat Image for Photoshop Profiles After that you can use individual profiles from this set in Neat Image to process images produced in device modes covered by this profile set Please be aware that using ready
53. mage plug in for Photoshop Win 1 3 4 Supported types of images The following image types are supported e 8 bit 16 bit 32 bit per channel RGB images e 8 bit 16 bit 32 bit per channel grayscale images Color input images are supposed to be in a flavor of RGB color space like AdobeRGB sRGB etc If an input image is in some flavor of RGB color space then Neat Image produces the output image in exactly the same flavor of RGB color space Minimum size of an input image is 40x40 pixels maximum size is usually limited by the amount of system RAM available The plug in can work with images stored using any file format that can be opened by Photoshop PSD TIFF RAW JPEG etc 2 Key concepts 2 1 What it can do functionality of Neat Image Neat Image is a digital image filter Its main function is to reduce noise in digital images Neat Image can work with images produced by any imaging devices digital cameras scanners etc Neat Image can be adjusted to a particular device by means of a device noise profile which describes the noise characteristics of the device working in a certain mode A device noise profile is built by analyzing featureless image areas that contain no visible or important details Usually the software can find such areas completely automatically In a difficult case you can assist it and select featureless areas manually Finding such areas is very easy for human eyes but may sometimes be a
54. mited by size of image area that can be processed it only processes a part of the input image 1f the image is larger than 1024x1024 pixels The Home plug in is not limited by size of image area but only processes 8 bit images The Pro plug in additionally supports 16 bit and 32 bit images The Pro plug in unlike Demo and Home also supports Photoshop actions and smart filters in the recent versions of Photoshop Please also see the Detailed feature map page 40 for more details Should I uninstall Demo plug in prior to installing Home Pro plug in That is not necessary The Home Pro plug in can be installed over the Demo plug in Should I uninstall the older version of Neat Image prior to installing a newer one Usually that is not necessary A newer version can be installed over the older one it will replace the old version I think I have found a bug How can I submit a bug report Please use the online bug report form http www neatimage com win photoshop brf html Please fill it out to let us know all the details necessary to reproduce the problem See more information about bugs in the Issues subsection page 40 and about bug fixes in the Whats New txt file supplied with the software Also see the history section in the Neat Image web page for the most up to date information http www neatimage com win photoshop history html 11 2 Filtration related questions Why do I receive some crystal like artifacts in the f
55. n in the bottom of the plug in window The plug in window will be closed and filtration will start Processing may take some time from seconds to minutes depending on the speed of Neat Image is a processor intensive image filter so the processor s speed is the most important On Core 2 Duo 2GHZz processing a your computer s processor and size of the image 10 megapixel image takes about 5 seconds Neat Image v7 plug in for Photoshop On a computer Then the filtered output image is displayed in of typical configuration the processing time is Photoshop and you can continue your Photoshop linear with respect to image size when measured workflow in megapixels After filtration the Neat Image plug in will also automatically save the current settings such as device noise profile filter preset Action Setup settings which will enable re applying the plug in for example using the Ctrl F shortcut in Photoshop with the same settings without re doing the stages II III Also you can open the plug in manually and continue to work with the last used parameters 18 1999 2014 by Neat Image team ABSoft All rights reserved 26 Sep 14 User Guide Neat Image plug in for Photoshop Win 6 Using plug in in actions and smart filters 6 1 Configuring Neat Image in actions and smart filters The Neat Image plug in can be used in Photoshop actions and smart filters along with the built in Photoshop filters The plug in has two
56. n use the displayed Calibration Target in the Step 2 below Case of shooting the printed Calibration Target Open the Calibration Target image in an image editor and print out the image on a sheet of white 24 1999 2014 by Neat Image team ABSoft All rights reserved 26 Sep 14 User Guide Neat Image plug in for Photoshop Win matte paper make the image fill the whole page Then use the printed target in the Step 2 below Step 2 Preparing a shot or scan of the Calibration Target Case of digital camera Use the displayed or printed Calibration Target to prepare a test shot for building a device noise profile for your camera 1 Set the camera to a certain shooting mode ISO level etc you want to build a profile for 2 Important set the focusing system on infinity or in macro mode to get a slightly out of focus image of the target Make sure the Calibration Target fills the whole frame and make a shot 4 Open the resulting shot in Neat Image plug in Case of flatbed scanner Use the printed Calibration Target to prepare a test scan for building a device noise profile for your flatbed scanner 1 Set the scanner to a certain scanning mode resolution light level etc you want to build a profile for 2 If possible set the scanner slightly out of focus an out of focus scan is preferred for profiling a possible way to achieve this is to raise the page over the scanner glass a bit Scan the printed Calibrati
57. ndard mode the noise reduction applied to each image component either luminance or chrominance component is controlled by the corresponding noise reduction amount setting A noise reduction amount tells the filter how much of the detected Filter Settings noise should be reduced For example 1f the noise reduction E x amount is set to 50 then all image elements that are considered Default by the filter to be noise are reduced made weaker or less visible Noise Reduction Amounts in half The noise reduction amount value of 100 tells the filter Luminance 60 to remove the detected noise completely The default noise reduction amounts usually produce good E b 100 ia 3 1 filtration results provided the noise profile is accurate By default Sharpening the noise filter removes 60 of detected noise in the luminance Amount A 0 component of the input image and 100 of noise in the chrominance component Our experience shows that the default noise reduction amounts usually provide a good balance between noise removal and preserving natural not over processed appearance of filtered images Decreasing the noise reduction amounts may have a positive effect if the input image contains some natural noise For example when you filter images of asphalt sand or anything else that contains fine natural noise like features 1t may be helpful to reduce amounts down to 30 50 Use the Quality and Match indicators in the Device
58. neer modify clone and emulate any version or edition of Neat Image or any portion of it including the license data Use the Home or Pro edition of Neat Image 1f you are not registered user of the corresponding edition of Neat Image Term and termination If you are a registered user of the Home or Pro edition of Neat Image and you have purchased a license for a certain major version and edition of Neat Image then you may use this major version including all minor updates of the 26 Sep 14 1999 2014 by Neat Image team ABSoft All rights reserved 41 User Guide Neat Image plug in for Photoshop Win same major version and edition of the software without time limitations provided you observe this license agreement A license for a certain major version of the Home or Pro edition of Neat Image may be extended to a higher major version By decision of the Neat Image team ABSoft this extension may be automatic and free or may involve an upgrade fee You may terminate this license agreement at any time by returning or destroying all copies of Neat Image in your possession and notifying the Neat Image team This license agreement will terminate immediately if you infringe upon the Neat Image team ABSoft s copyrights or breach this agreement Copyright infringement or breaching this agreement may also result in criminal or civil prosecution Disclaimer of warranty The authors make no warranty or representation either express or im
59. new features and improvements contacts and general comments Web page http www neatimage com win photoshop index html 13 5 Legal information Copyright Neat Image 1999 2014 by Neat Image team ABSoft All rights reserved License agreement By downloading and or using the Neat Image plug in for Photoshop Win software called Neat Image hereunder in this agreement you indicate that you accept this license agreement If you are unable or unwilling to accept this license agreement then you may not use Neat Image and must return and or destroy all copies of Neat Image in your possession You may Use the Demo edition of Neat Image free of charge for non commercial purposes only Copy and distribute the Demo edition of Neat Image Run the Home or Pro edition of Neat Image on one or more up to the number specified in your license computer computers at a time for commercial and other purposes provided you are a registered user and you have a valid license for the corresponding edition of Neat Image You may not Sublicense rent lease and sell any version or edition of Neat Image or any portion of it including the license data without the explicit written permission from the Neat Image team ABSoft Copy share and distribute the Home and Pro edition of Neat Image or any portion of it including the license data without the explicit written permission from the Neat Image team ABSoft Decompile disassemble reverse engi
60. ng improvements and new features Thanks to all the people who help us to find and fix bugs in Neat Image plug in for Photoshop Thank you to all the users who stimulate the development of Neat Image by their word and deed Neat Image wouldn t be neat without all of you Neat Image team ABSoft 42 O 1999 2014 by Neat Image team ABSoft All rights reserved 26 Sep 14 User Guide 14 Index compatibility 4 component viewer 32 device noise profile 9 batch profiler 28 building 21 automatic 22 for a certain mode 21 for different modes 27 using calibration target 24 using regular image 22 ready made 21 viewer 32 examples 36 features 3 40 filter preset 8 16 frequency 15 high 15 39 low 15 16 Neat Image plug in for Photoshop Win range 5 13 15 37 very low 15 license agreement 41 noise color 16 39 filter 5 14 high ISO 5 38 level 14 reduction 14 amount 12 14 partial filtration 40 plug in 6 profile matching 10 31 registration 42 sharpening filter 13 16 system requirements 4 26 Sep 14 1999 2014 by Neat Image team ABSoft All rights reserved 43
61. ng on the device name and device mode parameters helps you keep track of them when you do manual profile matching 1 e when you manually select a suitable profile to process an image Automatic profile matching available in Neat Image uses the EXIF information from the image files and profiles not the Device Name and Mode fields so filling out these fields may not be necessary for automatic profile matching However filling out these fields is highly advisable both for the clarity purposes and for the cases of EXIF less input images in such cases you have to manually select a suitable profile based on the Device Name and Mode fields See the Preparing profile set for different device modes section below to learn more about camera and scanner parameters that may need to be documented in the Device Name and Mode fields 7 2 4 Stage Ill Saving the noise profile Use Ej the Save Device Noise Profile As button blue disk in the Device Noise Profile box or use the Profile gt Save As menu item In the Save Device Noise Profile As dialog box select the desired file name for this profile The default name is based on the device name and device mode when these are available from the EXIF data fields of the analyzed image If the EXIF data are not available then the default profile name is based on the name of analyzed image file Use the suggested default or change the name of the file to store the device noise profile Device noise
62. ngs tab shows a part of the image processed by the noise and sharpening filters If you change any filter settings then the preview 1s automatically updated provided TENEN the Preview button in the toolbar is depressed You can zoom in and out drag scroll 1 l You can check and adjust the location of the Profile folder using the menu Tools gt P references gt Folders 26 Sep 14 1999 2014 by Neat Image team ABSoft All rights reserved 11 User Guide Neat Image plug in for Photoshop Win and pan the image to see how the filtration affects different parts of the image If you manually select an area in the image then only the selected area will be processed for preview When the preview is ready the preview area shows Filtered you can click inside the preview image area to temporarily switch back to the original for comparison 5 3 2 Standard and Advanced modes Neat Image has two sets of filter controls they are available in the Standard mode and Advanced mode you can select the mode using the Tools gt Standard mode and Advanced Mode menu items The Standard mode provides a simple control set recommended for beginners who just start using Neat Image The Advanced mode provides the most complete control set with maximum manual control over noise profiling and filtration processes The Advanced mode 1s recommended for power users Adjusting filter settings 1s described below separately for the Standard and
63. noise profile is not recommended Instead two different profiles should be built and used to filter these two images Based on these considerations and tables above identify the device mode parameters of your camera or scanner that 1 are important from the noise standpoint and 2 are changed in your imaging tasks For example if you never change the sharpness adjustment of your digital camera then there is no need to build profiles for different values of the sharpness adjustment parameter On the other hand if you do shoot with different ISO rates then you have to build profiles for every ISO rate you use Some parameters are less important for example the White Balance or Exposure and you may simply choose to ignore the difference in noise characteristics caused by such device mode parameters Identify and make a list of the device mode parameters that are important for your needs For example you could include the ISO rate ISO 100 200 400 and JPEG compression level HQ SHQ Then it is straightforward to write down all combinations of the selected parameters JPEG HQ ISO 100 JPEG HQ ISO 200 JPEG HQ ISO 400 JPEG SHQ ISO 100 JPEG SHQ ISO 200 JPEG SHQ ISO 400 Then prepare an individual profile for each combination from this list Please proceed to the Stage II to build profiles for all combinations 7 3 2 Stage Il Building individual profiles To build individual profiles for the profile set you can either use the standa
64. ntrated in high and medium spatial frequencies This condition is usually met by images produced by modern digital cameras This condition may not be completely satisfied 1f you use the strong e g x2 x3 and more digital zoom features of digital cameras 3 Installing plug in Normally the Neat Image plug in is automatically installed to Photoshop or another compatible image editor when you download and use the standard Neat Image install package corresponding to your version of Photoshop If for some reason the plug in is not automatically installed then you can install it manually using the guidelines below 3 1 1 Manual installation 64 bit version To manually install Neat Image plug in to 64 bit host application gt Photoshop CC 2014 CC CS6 CS5 x CS4 64 bit Copy the NeatImage 8bf file from the Neat Image installation folder typically C Program Files Neat Image for Photoshop into the Plug Ins subfolder inside the Photoshop folder Then re start Photoshop make sure you start the 64 bit version of Photoshop as there may be two Photoshop versions available 32 bit and 64 bit one and find Neat Image in the menu Filter gt Neat Image gt Reduce Noise 3 1 2 Manual installation 32 bit version To manually install Neat Image plug in to 32 bit host application 32 bit Photoshop Photoshop Elements Copy the NeatImage 8bf file from the Neat Image installation folder typically C Program Files N
65. older or you can structure the files into subfolders This choice only affects the convenience of manual selection of profiles while automatic profile matching can handle both cases equally well If the automatic profile matching 1s not available for example if the images or profiles contain no EXIF information or the available EXIF details are incomplete then you have to select profiles manually Therefore we recommend to structure profiles according to one of the methods above to make your manual work easier 7 3 4 Stage IV Documenting profile set Along with the text comments inside the device noise profiles and their file names we recommend to document the whole profile set with a plain text file explaining the following points Author of the profile set and profiling date Device name firmware version Device modes that have been profiled in this set e Device mode parameters that change within the profile set e Device mode parameters that are constant for all profiles in the set Post processing applied after receiving image from imaging device and before Neat Image 30 1999 2014 by Neat Image team ABSoft All rights reserved 26 Sep 14 User Guide Neat Image plug in for Photoshop Win An example of such a description 1s below Olympus C5050Z noise profiles by John Smith September 26 2014 A set of profiles for Olympus C5050Z TIFF and JPEG files The profiles were built using shots of the Calibration Target for
66. on Target 4 Open the resulting scan in Neat Image plug in Case of slide scanner Use the displayed or printed Calibration Target to prepare a test scan for building a device noise profile for your film scanner 1 Set the camera to a certain shooting mode film type exposure etc you want to build a profile for 2 Important set the focusing system on infinity or in macro mode to get a slightly out of focus image of the target 3 Make sure the Calibration Target fills the whole frame and make a shot 4 Develop the slide and put it into the scanner Set the scanner to a certain scanning mode resolution light level etc that you want to build a profile for and scan the slide 6 Open the resulting scan in Neat Image plug in Step 3 Analyzing image noise Having the shot or scan of the Calibration Target Neat Image can build a noise profile automatically Use the Profile gt Auto Profile with Calibration Target menu item After the analysis is completed proceed to the Stage II below 26 Sep 14 1999 2014 by Neat Image team ABSoft All rights reserved 25 User Guide 7 2 3 Stage Il Documenting noise profile At this point of building the noise profile for your camera or scanner the noise analysis is done and all important noise characteristics are gathered in the profile You may still want to manually document the profile 1f Neat Image has not done this automatically With most images from digital c
67. on in Photoshop You will now have a ready for use action that includes Neat Image with configured parameters 5 In Photoshop go to the menu File gt Automate gt Batch This will open the Batch window where you can configure a new batch that will process your series of images 6 Inthe Set Action fields of the Batch window select the action that you have just recorded 7 Configure the rest of the Batch options according to the Photoshop user guide and then start the batch processing Photoshop s Batch tool will then process your images using the action that you have prepared Since Neat Image is a part of that action the Batch tool will apply Neat Image filtration to every image in the batch Since it is possible that some of the images may not be automatically processed by Neat Image or other filters that may be used in your action due to some errors use the log options to save a log of the batch and then check which image s failed If they failed because Neat Image could not process them you can find out why that happened by manually running the action on one of those images Make sure you run the action with GUI dialog enabled to make Neat Image open its main window and display the error messages that will explain the problem to help you resolve it After the problem is resolved run the batch again using the steps 5 7 above 20 1999 2014 by Neat Image team ABSoft All rights reserved 26 Sep 14 User Guide Neat Image p
68. or panel which offers an easy way to locate and navigate to an area of interest in a large image that does not entirely fit into the viewer for example when you zoom into the image to see its fine details When using Navigator you don t need to zoom out and then again zoom in though such an approach to locating an area of interest can be used as well Use the Navigator button in top left corner of the viewer the Tools gt Navigator menu item or press F8 to open or close the Navigator panel Use the mouse pointer to drag the visible area frame to the desired image position within the Navigator panel This will make the main viewer navigate to the same position in the image 8 3 Profile Viewer es Profile Viewer The Profile Viewer provides detailed information EA E about the currently used noise profile 73 Noise Sample Channel Components Y 3 24 Use the Profile viewer button in the cr 2 75 0 Cb 3 85 MN Device Noise Profile box in the Device Noise Frequency Components Profile tab to open the Profile Viewer window nam Mid 3 19 P 3 A Low 2 36 EJ The Profile Viewer provides the following details tery low 1 57 ES i e o Image Metadata e Overall Profile Quality this 1s an an estimation of the overall quality of the iii noise analysis contained in this profile Compression 2 s c The higher this value the better this pa Frevining 46 toner Default profile seems to be A qualit
69. ortant that the parameter is very close or matches exactly e Low it is preferable that the parameter is close or matches exactly e ignore the parameter is not important at all 9 4 Performance preferences The first group of settings in this tab selects the computing devices to be used for image processing This group of settings is optional it is shown only if at least one supported GPU graphic processing unit is available along with the regular CPU central processing unit or processor This group includes the 34 1999 2014 by Neat Image team ABSoft All rights reserved 26 Sep 14 User Guide Neat Image plug in for Photoshop Win following items Use CPU only This option makes Neat Image perform all image processing using only CPU Use GPU only This option makes Neat Image perform all image processing using only GPU Use CPU and GPU If you select this option then Neat Image will process images using both CPU and GPU Depending on individual performance of each computing device CPU and GPU each of the above options may be the most efficient You can try different settings and measure the resulting speed using the Benchmark tool below CPU Number of used cores This option adjusts the number of CPU cores used by Neat Image for processing The number of used cores can go up to the total number of cores in all CPUs in your computer like 2 cores in Core Duo 4 cores in Core Quad 8 cores in a desktop v
70. ou can change this preset using the controls in the Filter Settings box and then the new or modified preset will be recorded into the action or smart filter When you complete the adjustments in the Action Setup window click the Apply button to save them in the action or smart filter that you currently record or configure 6 2 Neat Image in action based batch processing The Neat Image plug in for Photoshop can be used to process several images at a time using Photoshop s action based batching facility To use this kind of batching you must do the following 1 Pick one image from the series of images that you want to process and manually apply Neat Image filtration to this image to make sure you get the filtration results that you like Then undo the changes done to the image 2 Start recording a new action in Photoshop if necessary consult Photoshop s documentation to check how you can create record and play actions in your version of Photoshop 3 While recording the action repeat the step 1 and before applying the Neat Image plug in click the Action Setup button in Neat Image plug in window and make sure the settings there correctly describe the way you want Neat Image to prepare noise profile s and filter preset when the action will be played After configuring the Action Setup settings click the Apply button in the Action Setup window and then click the Apply button in the main plug in window 4 Stop recording the acti
71. p 1 Preparing a regular image for noise analysis To analyze noise in a regular image you can use the input image or an alternative regular image that was produced by the same camera or scanner in the same or similar shooting scanning mode Using the input image usually produces most accurate noise profile that perfectly matches the noise properties of this input image However if there are not enough flat featureless areas in the input image then you have to use an alternative regular image Case of using the input image In this case simply open the input image in the plug in and proceed to the step 2 below Case of using an alternative image If there is no large enough uniform featureless areas in the input image use an alternative image The alternative image is supposed to be produced by the same device working in the same or similar mode This can be just another image from the same series the image should contain at least one large enough uniform featureless area suitable for analysis Open an alternative image in Photoshop and then open this image in Neat Image plug in for analysis below Step 2 Analyzing image noise profiling Analyzing noise is the main part of building a noise profile for an imaging device working in a certain mode The current version of Neat Image plug in for Photoshop offers three ways of conducting the noise analysis profiling automatic semi automatic and manual one Using automatic profiling is
72. parameters when used in an action or smart filter Profile and Preset The Profile parameter tells Neat Image which device noise profile should be used the Preset parameter specifies which filter preset should be used When you record an action or configure a smart El Action Setup filter that includes the Neat Image plug in you can select the source of noise profile and filter preset that should be used by the plug in To do that click el ERTS i E950 150225 2bpp 1500x1200 WB Default 0 50s Device Noise Profile Action Setup_ the Action Setup button in the main plug in window and then select the corresponding O Auto Match options in the Action Setup window You can later Auto Profile return and check which options are selected in the 3 Smart Profile Auto Profile and Auto Match current action or smart filter using that window Auto Fine Tune To specify how Neat Image should prepare Filter Preset noise profile s for the input image s Use Current Preset processed by this action or smart filter select Default one of the following options in the Device Noise Profile box e Use Current Profile The plug in will use a fixed noise profile that has been created or loaded into plug in at the time of action recording configuring the smart filter and is currently available in the Device Noise Profile box in the main plug in window the plug in will record that noise profile into the action or smart filter and will then
73. ple higher than 70 then you can be sure that the noise profile is accurate Please proceed to Stage H Documenting noise profile page 26 If the automatically selected image area does contain visible details or the profile quality is not very high then try to use the semi automatic profiling instead see below Case of semi automatic profiling 1 Find a uniform featureless image area n i Manually find and select an image area that contains no visible details The area should be at least 32x32 pixels large That is the minimum size the recommended size is 128x128 pixels or more you can resize the selection frame Scroll pan zoom the image to find a uniform image area and then select this area for analysis If you cannot find a large enough uniform area in the input image consider using an alternative regular image or use the Calibration Target as explained in the next section Stage I Case of building a profile using the Calibration Target page 24 2 Analyze selected image area E Auto Profile Click Neat Image will automatically analyze the selected image area and the rest of the image the Auto Profile button The profile is now ready Please proceed to Stage II Documenting noise profile page 26 Case of manual profiling Advanced mode only 1 Find a uniform featureless area Manually find and select an area that contains no visible details The area should be at least 32x32 pixels l
74. plied with respect to this software its quality accuracy merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose This software is provided as is and you its user assume the entire risk as to its quality and accuracy Distribution The Demo edition of Neat Image may be distributed unmodified provided any charge is to cover distribution costs only The Demo edition of Neat Image may be placed on magazine CDs etc as long as the Neat Image team is informed 13 6 Registration By becoming a registered user of Neat Image plug in for Photoshop you will Encourage the authors to further develop and improve the software Get access to advanced functionality of Neat Image see the Detailed feature map page 40 Be able to use Neat Image for commercial and other purposes Get free access to updates of the software with the same major version number at least Enjoy reduced upgrade prices for new major versions of Neat Image or will get a free upgrade Receive the primary attention of Neat Image support group Receive the primary attention of Neat Image development group tell us what you want to see in the next version Message from the Neat Image team By becoming a registered user you are helping us to further develop and improve the software Become a registered user and we will make Neat Image better for you 13 7 Acknowledgments Thank you to all the users who have contributed to Neat Image plug in for Photoshop by proposi
75. profile would perfectly match the noise of that image Nevertheless any noise profile can with some degree of accuracy be used to process other images captured by the same device working in the same or similar mode This is less accurate than building a profile for each image but saves time because building a new quality profile can take more time than re using a pre built one This is especially important if one profile is re used many times for example to process a series of images produced in one device mode Also it may not always be possible to build an accurate profile using input image when it contains no flat featureless areas When using pre built profiles you may also want to pay attention to the Quality indicator in the Device Noise Profile box A properly built and fine tuned profile will show a high value in this indicator If the profile quality is high for example higher than 70 then you can be sure that the profile 1s accurate Both Quality and Match indicators should usually show high values for the noise reduction of the current input image using the current noise profile to be accurate 26 Sep 14 1999 2014 by Neat Image team ABSoft All rights reserved 21 User Guide Neat Image plug in for Photoshop Win 8 Additional tools 8 1 Alternative modes of image viewer The image viewer in Neat Image can show the currently processed image in several alternative modes to enable detailed examination of both channel and
76. profiles are saved as dnp files File naming considerations If you are going to re use a device noise profile later on select a good file name explaining the device name and mode so that you could easily recognize this profile by its file name Alternatively you can use special folder structuring to keep many device noise profiles arranged according to their device modes See Preparing profile set for different device modes Stage HI Structuring profile set page 29 for additional information A saved noise profile includes the complete noise analysis Therefore by re opening the noise profile you can reproduce exactly the same conditions for image processing later on 26 1999 2014 by Neat Image team ABSoft All rights reserved 26 Sep 14 User Guide Neat Image plug in for Photoshop Win 7 3 Preparing profile set for different device modes Usually an imaging device can work in several different modes Therefore there should be several device noise profiles covering different modes to enable accurate processing of arbitrary images produced by this device If a set of profiles covers all modes of the device then any image from this device can be processed by using one of the profiles from the set This subsection explains how you can prepare a reusable set of profiles for a range of modes of an imaging device As an owner of a certain imaging device you are in perfect position to prepare a profile set because you hav
77. quality which is usually inevitable with noisy images The combination of the sharpening and noise filters makes such an effect possible Online examples of Neat Image noise reduction www neatimage com Neat Image plug in for Photoshop is currently produced in three editions Demo Home and Pro All editions provide top quality noise reduction and sharpening The difference is the following e Demo plug in is a free edition of the software with limited functionality e Home plug in processes only 8 bit images and does not support Photoshop actions e Pro plug in supports 8 bit 16 bit and 32 bit images as well as Photoshop actions and smart filters 1 2 Features Photoshop plug in To selectively apply noise reduction to layers channels selections areas of interest To automate your workflow using Photoshop actions including Neat Image noise reduction To enable noise reduction in Photoshop action based batches 32 bit and 64 bit versions of Photoshop supported Noise Reduction and Image Sharpening e Advanced noise filter to reduce noise and grain in digital images e Smart sharpening filter to make images look sharper without amplification of noise e bit 16 bit and 32 bit image support to fully utilize capabilities of modern image acquisition devices and support HDR post processing workflows e CUDA and OpenCL acceleration to speed up processing using computation capable GPUs Device Noise Profiles e Auto Profile to build noi
78. quency components and three channel components of the input image The corresponding sliders adjust the estimated noise levels of these components The higher a certain noise level the more image elements in the corresponding image component are considered noise Be careful setting a noise level setting too high can lead to removal of important image details Setting a noise level setting too low can lead to incomplete filtration residual noise and compression artifacts can stay in the output image As arule if the device noise profile has been built properly it is not necessary to increase the noise levels by more than 50 If the input image contains strong surges of noise in the high frequency We recommend disabling the sharpening filter when adjusting the noise filter To disable the sharpening filter uncheck all channels in the Sharpening Settings box 26 Sep 14 1999 2014 by Neat Image team ABSoft All rights reserved 15 User Guide Neat Image plug in for Photoshop Win range it is recommended to increase the high frequency noise level up to 20 to 40 If the input image contains strong color noise it is recommended to increase the Cr and Cb noise levels to 30 In some cases it may be useful to increase these noise levels up to 100 If adjusting noise levels still does not help and some noise elements remain visible in the preview and output image probably the device noise profile is not good at all Return to Stage
79. rd profiling procedure described earlier or employ a special Neat Image tool the Batch Profiler Using standard profiling procedure To build individual profiles using the standard profiling procedure follow the guidelines of the Building a profile for a device mode section page 21 Using those guidelines build a new profile for every combination of the device mode parameters included in your list as described in the Stage I above The resulting set of noise profiles several dnp files on the disk can be further structured as explained in the Stage III below Using Batch Profiler The Batch Profiler is a dedicated tool that can automatically build several noise profiles using shots or scans of the Calibration Target please note that the Batch Profiler is not for regular images To use this tool you must prepare several shots scans and then analyze them all at once using the Batch P rofiler 1 Preparing set of images of the Calibration Target To prepare shot or scan of the Calibration Target for every combination of device mode parameters 28 1999 2014 by Neat Image team ABSoft All rights reserved 26 Sep 14 User Guide Neat Image plug in for Photoshop Win please follow the two initial steps of Stage I Case of building a profile using the Calibration Target Step 1 Preparing the Calibration Target see page 24 Step 2 Preparing a shot or scan of the Calibration Target see page 25 Do the Step 2 for every comb
80. re is also another way to select profile for an image based on structuring the profile set using the disk folders For example the above Olympus C5050Z profile set could be structured like this lt 7 Olympus C5050Z C TIFF 7 2288x1712 ISO 100 dnp ISO 200 dnp ISO 400 dnp 7 2560x1696 ISO 100 dnp ISO 200 dnp ISO 400 dnp 7 2560x1920 ISO 100 dnp ISO 200 dnp ISO 400 dnp 7 JPEG 7 HQ 7 2560x1696 ISO 100 dnp ISO 200 dnp ISO 400 dnp 7 2560x1920 ISO 100 dnp ISO 200 dnp ISO 400 dnp 7 SHQ 7 2560x1696 ISO 100 dnp ISO 200 dnp ISO 400 dnp 7 2560x1920 ISO 100 dnp ISO 200 dnp ISO 400 dnp 7 disk folder Olympus C5050Z JPEG TIFF HHHH x THE the names of disk subfolders containing device noise profiles for corresponding device modes ISO dnp device noise profiles Note that constant parameter Sharpness adjustment is not reflected in the folder structure However if there were profiles with different values of these parameters then additional subfolder should be added Parameters that can be disregarded such as exposure time are not reflected in the folder structure too In this case the folder tree stores device noise profiles in a structured way which helps to select one profile from the set given the device mode of the input image Note that the automatic profile matching provided by Neat Image does work well in both cases you can keep the whole set of profiles as a flat list of files in one f
81. re or after makes little difference as long as the noise profile is built and applied at the same stage of image processing For example do not use a device noise profile built with an unprocessed with the color correction not yet applied image to filter a processed image Some digital cameras apply some color correction internally Other cameras allow access to unprocessed RAW data Neat Image is a generic filter which can be applied in both cases The only 26 Sep 14 1999 2014 by Neat Image team ABSoft All rights reserved 39 User Guide Neat Image plug in for Photoshop Win requirement is to use profile that matches the device mode of the input image On the other hand image sharpening applied to a noisy image makes it much noisier It is best to apply Neat Image filtration before sharpening However the sharpening and noise filters of Neat Image can be used together because the sharpening is applied AFTER noise filtration If you are not sure try to use Neat Image as close to the source of the input image as possible 12 Tips and tricks 12 1 Partial filtration Some images contain both noisy and clean areas and it may be preferable to filter only noisy areas This can be manually done by combining two images original and filtered one using two layers in Photoshop For example the following steps can be used 1 Open the input image in your image editor 2 Copy the input image in a new layer on top of the o
82. riginal image 3 Apply Neat Image noise reduction to the top layer 4 Adjust the transparency of the top layer so that noisy areas look fine 5 Select and delete the areas of the top layer where filtration is not necessary or excessive you may want to use the eraser tool with adjustable transparency and shape 13 Information 13 1 Issues and bugs Please report any bugs or issues you encounter while working with Neat Image Use the online bug report form http www neatimage com win photoshop brf html Your feedback will greatly help us improve the software and provide you with newer and better versions of Neat Image 13 2 Plans The current version of Neat Image plug in for Photoshop is going to be further improved in the consequent updates We continue to work on the core noise reduction algorithms to improve the quality and speed of noise reduction Please let us know if you have ideas that can make Neat Image better for you Participate in discussions in the Neat Image community forum express your opinion make suggestions and ask questions The more people that ask for a feature the more likely that 1t will be implemented 13 3 Detailed feature map Demo plug in Home plug in Pro plug in 8 bit channel 24 bit RGB 8 bit Grayscale Images 16 bit channel 48 bit RGB 16 bit Grayscale 32 bit channel 96 bit RGB 32 bit Grayscale Workflow Support for Photoshop actions and smart filters
83. rkflows used Therefore we advise to use profiles built by others only as a starting point to learn how to use Neat Image To achieve better 1 You can see some examples of featureless image areas in the Examples section page 36 26 Sep 14 1999 2014 by Neat Image team ABSoft All rights reserved 9 User Guide Neat Image plug in for Photoshop Win results consider building your own reusable profiles You can build a set of profiles for different device modes or just one profile to process one image You can find more details about profiling in the Device noise profiles section page 21 Once you have a set of profiles for different modes of your imaging device you can automatically or manually select a profile that matches the input image Or if you have just built a singe profile specifically for the input image then you can directly use the profile to process the image in the Stages M V below Auto Profile build a new profile using the input image EF Device Noise Profile Make sure you have switched to the Device Noise Profile tab i Click the Auto Profile button in the toolbar or use the Profile gt Auto Profile with Regular Image menu item or press F2 Neat Image will find and highlight the image area selected by Auto Profile for main analysis Neat Image will then automatically analyze the noise in that area as well as in the whole image and will build a new noise profile To build a pro
84. s in the noise filter parameters check preview on different parts of the image to get a better feeling for the prospective results of noise reduction If the noise filtration looks too strong try to decrease the noise reduction amounts If the noise filtration is not sufficient then increase the amounts Adjusting sharpening settings in Standard mode optional The sharpening filter in Neat Image increases image sharpness without increasing the noise strength The sharpening filter is disabled sharpening amount is set to 0 by default Increase the sharpening amount to sharpen the image Like with any sharpening method you have to balance the sharpening amount to avoid over sharpening Use the preview when adjusting the sharpening settings Adjust sharpening amount Filter Settings Use the Sharpening Amount slider Default Specify how much sharpening should be applied to the input Noise Reduction Amounts image ears E TH Use preview Chrominance 100 As you make changes to the sharpening setting check preview Sharpening on different parts of the image to get a better feeling for the Amount P 0 results of sharpening As soon as you are happy with the preview results regarding both noise reduction and sharpening proceed to save the filter settings into a preset see page 16 or directly to the Stage V Apply filter page 18 5 3 4 Adjust filter settings in Advanced mode As said above Neat Image has two sets of filt
85. se profiles for your camera or scanner on the fly e Rich set of pre built noise profiles in the online profile library e Auto Match for selecting the most suitable pre built noise profiles for input images Some features are only available in the Home or Pro plug in Detailed feature map page 40 explains the differences between editions of Neat Image plug in for Photoshop 26 Sep 14 1999 2014 by Neat Image team ABSoft All rights reserved 3 User Guide Neat Image plug in for Photoshop Win 1 3 Requirements 1 3 1 Hardware requirements System requirements for practical use of Neat Image depend on size of input images The more system RAM is available the larger the images that can be handled The processing speed is determined primarily by the processor number crunching power and memory speed clock frequency number of cores processors cache size memory speed and availability of CUDA capable GPU Recommended system configuration to process photos produced by modern digital cameras e Multi core Intel processor Core 17 15 13 etc single or multi processor e 1 GB RAM or more e True color display resolution 1024x768 or more Optional CUDA acceleration requires e CUDA capable NVIDIA video card e Recent video driver supporting CUDA v4 2 or newer you can download the latest versions of the video drivers from http www nvidia com Optional OpenCL acceleration requires e Supported video card ATI Radeon HD 57xx
86. the following file formats and image sizes TIFF 2048x1536 2288x1712 2560x1696 2560x1920 JPEG HQ SHQ 2560x1696 2560x1920 For each file format and image size above shots with different ISO rates 100 200 and 400 were made and used to build profiles Default camera settings were used for Sharpness Contrast and Saturation In camera noise reduction was switched off The white balance was set to daylight No post processing was applied the calibration target shots directly from the camera were opened in Neat Image to build profiles Such kind of summary would help you figure out any set of profiles you prepared as well as let other people understand your results if you decided to share your profiles 7 4 Using noise profiles When you have a set of profiles for your camera or scanner you can directly use these profiles to process images in Neat Image Usually there is only one profile that is most suitable to process a given input image Therefore 1t is very important to select the right profile which would provide the best match between profile and image Profiles in a set usually correspond to different modes of the imaging device To make a perfect match between a profile and image the device mode of a profile should be the same or very close to the device mode used to capture the image There are two ways to select a device noise profile that matches the input image e To automatically select the most suitable profi
87. ts High Mid Low Y Cr Cb sliders You can vary the noise reduction amount for each A TER a s human vision 1s not very sensitive to frequency and channel component of the input variations of colors strong filtration in the Cr image The higher a certain noise reduction amount and Cb channels does not noticeably distort an the more of the detected noise 1s removed in the image but efficiently removes color noise corresponding image component Be careful setting the noise reduction amounts Noise samples of different frequency size High ae too high can lead to unnaturally looking are shown in the Noise Filter Settings box ii ZI over smooth plastic like results Too low i amounts may be not enough to sufficiently remove the objectionable part of the noise You have to balance the noise reduction amounts most importantly the amount of noise reduction in the Y channel to get the result that looks best to your eyes These are examples of grainy structures typically regarded as noise 13 If the input image has only fine high frequency noise then you can utilize only the high frequency filter and switch off the filters for other frequencies by setting their amounts to 0 Adjust additional filter settings optional If the input image contains strong low frequency noise for example a very coarse grained color splotches then you may want to switch on the very low frequency filter check the Very low freq checkbox in t
88. uction amount pair is the following e a noise level control adjusts the threshold that determines which image elements are considered noise in the corresponding image component and which elements are considered not noise e a noise reduction amount control determines how much reduction is applied to the image elements identified as noise in the same image component In Advanced mode you can adjust the noise levels as well as noise Filter Settings reduction amounts for each image component The noise levels are E x adjusted relative to the noise levels of the current noise profile that Default have been measured during profiling A For example the noise level of the Y luminance channel could be Hioh iene 5 0 measured in the noise profile at 8 55 units This number tells the 4 p KR noise filter which image elements should be considered noise and or pE L isla which image details the image elements that are weaker than r Q 0 8 55 units are considered noise and reduced by the noise filter the ac B 0 image elements that are stronger than 8 55 units are considered co Q l 0 details and not reduced Noise Redondos If you do not change the default noise filter settings Noise Levels High ee LJ 100 Y 0 then noise reduction in the Y channel is completely gt L 100 determined by the measured number from the noise profile 8 55 r L 100 units However if you do adjust the filter setting for the Y noise oo e
89. y digital cameras and scanners and can also be used to process images from other sources An input image should satisfy the following requirements e Noise must be uniformly distributed throughout the image e there should be no strong surges of noise intensity in some areas of the image or significant changes of noise characteristics across the image Neat Image works fine for example on images with high ISO noise because such noise usually uniformly covers the whole image area However hot or dead pixels produced by single broken elements of image sensor do not satisfy the uniformity condition and therefore are not efficiently removed by Neat Image 26 Sep 14 1999 2014 by Neat Image team ABSoft All rights reserved 5 User Guide Neat Image plug in for Photoshop Win Another frequent source of noise is JPEG compression The JPEG noise is approximately uniform when high quality setting low compression rate larger file size 1s used However low compression quality makes noise non uniform Therefore we recommend using the highest quality levels whenever possible Try to avoid visible artifacts squares or blocks introduced by JPEG compression in input images beginning from the early stages of image processing If you can use lossless file formats such as TIFF or RAW any file format supported by Photoshop can be used with the Neat Image plug in in Photoshop environment Noise should be conce
90. y profile is C 100 Cb 100 necessary for quality noise reduction Lx 32 1999 2014 by Neat Image team ABSoft All rights reserved 26 Sep 14 User Guide Neat Image plug in for Photoshop Win e Noise Sample this is an optional noise sample a crop from the image used to build this profile The noise sample helps you visually evaluate the noise described by this profile Also you can easily see whether any details are present in this area which makes the profile less accurate only flat featureless areas without any details should be used for profiling so the sample should contain no visible details e Clipping this indicator tells whether there is any clipping in the analyzed image area Clipping occurs when the sample contains pixels that are very close to or in fact are entirely white or entirely black Clipping reduces the overall profile quality e Uniformity these values show how uniform the noise sample is in all color channels The uniformity is low when any details are present in the area Low uniformity reduces the overall profile quality e Fine Tuning this indicator tells how well this profile is fine tuned Fine tuning is a part of profiling process both automatic and manual and the more complete and accurate the fine tuning the higher the overall profiling quality If you work with Neat Image in Advanced mode then you can see that the more equalizer values are filled in with measur

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