I just could not decide what to post today. After going from more than 10 photos, and just not being able to choose one, I ended up with this one. Just one of those days probably :)

This is one of the chandeliers in the Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi. This is mostly a single exposure, with a second one used to darken few bright spots.

Technique: Photoshop edit, Number of exposures: 2, Camera Model: Canon 5D mark II, Lens: Canon 16-35mm F2.8, Focal length: 16mm, Aperture: 8, Middle exposure time: 3.2s, ISO: 100, Tripod used: yes, Location: 24.412292, 54.474336

I so regret missing the last years St. Stephens fireworks in Budapest. I got home from another trip around 3 days before them, and I felt so sick and tired, that I had no energy to go onto another trip right away. But this year, I definitively will go again, and try my best to get some stunning new fireworks shots :)

This is a single exposure, edited in Lightroom and Photoshop.

Technique: Photoshop edit, Number of exposures: 1, Camera Model: Canon 5D mark II, Lens: Canon 24-70mm F2.8, Focal length: 70mm, Aperture: 6.3, Middle exposure time: 2.5s, ISO: 100, Tripod used: yes, Location: 48.19907, 16.37126

Looks like the new Old bridge in Bratislava is really nearing completion, and now also the lights are on at night, even if one is still not able to access the bridge. But I hope that will be soon :)

So here is my first photo of the bridge with the lights on. This is mostly a single exposure, with a second one used to darken the bright lights on the pillar, and a third one used to brighten the bottom part of the bridge, as it was completely dark.

I really like making these crazy detailed huge photos. To bad they never look as great once downsized. The do look great on a nice huge screen, as seen on the photo on the side. Same with this panorama from Paris. Here you can see the Louvre, as viewed with along lens form the top of the Tour Montparnasse. But as I said, it looks better bigger, you can get a 3440×1440 version here (perfectly sized for a wallpaper for a 34 inch 21:9 screen). On that one you can see the detail much better.

This is a two shot panorama, merged in Lightroom, than finished in Photoshop.

Technique: Photoshop edit, Number of exposures: 2×1, Camera Model: Sony a7R + Metabones MkIII Adapter, Lens: Canon 70-200mm F2.8 IS II, Focal length: 145mm, Aperture: 8, Exposure time: 6.0s, ISO: 200, Tripod used: yes, Location: 48.842261, 2.321754

Today Topaz released a new version of their noise removal plug-in Topaz DeNoise 6, and since I already had the ability to try it out, here are my thoughts on it, together with some example photos, so you can see before/after on how it works.

Even if I almost always shoot at ISO 100, there is noise in my photos. Either I had to use a long exposure, which creates noise, or I had to overexpose a part of an image, and that introduced more noise. And this is where a noise reduction plug-in comes in handy.

Interface

The Topaz DeNoise interface is really simple. On one side you have a list of presets, either the generic ones, or the ones specific for a camera and ISO combination. On the other side you can tweak the specific settings manually.

You can choose how you want to view the photo, either full color, luminosity view or by specific channel, and you can even have the preview be automatically brighten, so you can see the noise better.

It all easy and straightforward, and the only thing I could not find is a side by side view of the image, before and after noise reduction.

Noise removal

The results look really good. I found the default settings a bit on the strong side, where they soften the detail too much, but that can be corrected.

Topaz DeNoise 6 has three categories of settings. Noise reduction, detail recovery and Debanding. I like that they offer separate noise reduction based on the brightness (highlights and shadows are separated). Also being able to separately adjust noise in the blue and red channels is nice addition. I ended up turning down the Correct black levels, as it tended to result in overall contrast bump, and so causes the results to be much colorful. The Reduce blur in the Detail recovery really helps to remove the softness I mentioned earlier.
(the images will load bigger that usually, as I did not resize them down, so you can see the noise at 100%)

The debanding is something new for me. The purpose here is to remove noise lines that are created by very high ISO. I tried to create it by using 25600 ISO on my Canon 5D mark II, but I don’t think it was created. So for a view of that, check out the official site.

Conclusion

As you can see from the before/after shots, DeNoise creates quite nice results. One has to play with it a little, as the defaults are on the stronger side, but one can get good results. I compared it also to the plugin I use right now, the Imagenomic Noiseware, and the results are very similar. Better said, there were areas where I liked the DeNoise more and there were some where I liked Noiseware more. And since one can get a trial version for free, it’s easy to try out both, so you can have a look and decide for yourself what you like better :)

You can get a trial version for Topaz Denoise here, and for the next month, you can also use the code NOISEFREE to get 30usd off from teh standard price.