FIGURE B

If your idea of fun is twiddling knobs and dials, Noiseware's Noise Filter options won't disappoint. Click picture for a larger image.

One such tweak in the Professional version is the ability to use different noise removal presets as opposed to the simple "Default" option. You have options such as Landscape, Night Scene and Portrait that will affect your picture in appropriate manner. You can also set it to "Custom", which allows you to tweak all the settings as seen above.

When you are using the "Custom" settings, make a change then simply hit the Go button. The software will undo all of the previous settings and re-process your image. If you would rather not hit the Go button each time, you can turn the Preview function on. This will automatically start to apply your changes to the preview image as you make them. Some changes do take a second or two, so a status bar in the bottom left corner shows you how far along the software is in updating the preview image.

The results, even by simply using default, are excellent. To test, I took an ISO 1600 photo of a rabbit at 1/125 of a second at an aperture f5.6. This was an 8.1 megapixel image from a Canon 20D. Figure C shows the before and after results at a 100% crop near the top of the rabbit's head. The effects are most noticeable on the background, and on the inside of the rabbit's ear. I simply took the JPEG image and processed it using the default settings.

FIGURE C

Here you can see an image before and after a default pass of the software. Click picture for a larger image.

The software also compiles internal data every time you use it. It uses EXIF data embedded in your photos to build an on-going profile to improve results. So theoretically, the more you use the software, the better your results will get.

At this time, there are no pre-built profiles available for various camera or scanner models, but the Imagenomic Web site states that the feature is coming soon to the Professional version. This will allow you to choose a profile based what camera model and ISO settings you used on a particular photo. This should make the already excellent results that much better.

To round out the package, the software includes a basic file browser as well as batch processing capabilities. If you need to remove the noise from a bunch of photos, the batch processor does an admirable job.

Standard versus Pro
There are a few things that differentiate the Standard and Professional versions of the software. The first is embedded ICC color profile support. If your photo has an ICC profile embedded in it, the Professional version will automatically ask you if you want to apply the profile. For those that need the best color reproduction, this is imperative.

Next are the custom pre-sets such as Portrait and Landscape that we outlined above. Those are only part of the Professional version.

The last point is that the Professional version supports 48 bpp TIFF files. The standard version only supports the 24 bpp or 8-bit standard.

Conclusion
The Noiseware Professional standalone client will set you back $49 and the standard version is $26. Both are available for a 15-day free trial.

Noiseware is meant to do one thing, and that's remove noise from your images. It knows its job and it does it well. Well enough to garner it a very loud five out of five.

OUR RATING: 5 of 5

John Roling is an avid digital photographer, blogger and all-around techno-geek. He can be found online at http://greyhawk68.dominohosting.biz or emailed at jroling@gmail.com.