CHAPTER 13: Digital Astrophotography — What’s NEW?Chapter_13__Digital_Astrophotography.htmlChapter_13__Digital_Astrophotography.htmlshapeimage_1_link_0
 
Noise Ninja, before application. Early in the processing workflow we apply noise reduction using the third-party plug-in for Photoshop called Noise Ninja (www.picturecode.com). This superb plug-in helps smooth out luminance and chrominance noise. This is a blow-up before Noise Ninja is applied, showing the NN’s Profile page. By applying noise reduction early on, noise is reduced before subsequent contrast boosting, which will always bring out noise. So we get rid of as much of the noise first. http://www.picturecode.comshapeimage_42_link_0
Conclusion: While not essential, a noise-reduction plug-in has proven very useful. Photoshop itself has a “Reduce Noise” filter, which does work but can be very subtle in its effect. Noise Ninja can produce a much more dramatic improvement in noise, providing a 1 to 2 f-stop gain (making an ISO800 shot look like an ISO400 or 200 shot). It works great on old scanned film images as well. We recommend the Pro version of Noise Ninja in order to work on 16-bit images. Almost all of our astronomical images in The Backyard Astronomer’s Guide are DSLR photos that have passed through Noise Ninja. There are other programs like NoiseWare (see www.imagenomic.com/index.aspx), but we have used Noise Ninja (www.picturecode.com) for years and recommend it (it is available for both Mac and Windows). These comparisons, and other empirical testing we’ve done over the years, have guided the way we do DSLR imaging. The astrophotos throughout the book, most of which were taken by us with DSLRs, prove the techniques work. So our advice is gleaned from first-hand experience and is not received and repeated wisdom passed along without testing the assumptions. What works for CCD astro-cameras does not necessarily work best for DSLRs. Our best advice: test and try things yourself. See what works best for your gear and image processing workflow. http://www.imagenomic.com/index.aspxhttp://www.picturecode.comshapeimage_51_link_0shapeimage_51_link_1