First off, as stated on my site … I lay no claim whatsoever of being a professional photographer … opposite indeed … I am merely an enthusist and this is a hobby of mine … so this post is based on that degree of knowledge only … nothing more and nothing less …

Now, gadget side of my brain fully engaged day or night … been waiting for this one … without a doubt, the new generation DSLR’s are continuing to make serious headway in the “noise” reduction department … though there is still room for improvement and Noise Ninja does just that …

From my perspective; level of knowledge / skill set … and not even wanting to get into the PS debate … my preference is to not use tools outside of what is available within Aperture and two (2) plugin applications; NIK Viveza and Pictire Code Noise Ninja … what I want to improve upon is image quality by means of general “digital” dark room tools … once I have achieved this, then I may venture into PS and / or other “add ons” … though until then, I will remain within my current learning curve  …

Moreover, this is what Aperture 2.1 is all about … seamless (tight) integration … if it were for not the very brief encounter of Noise Ninja  taking your photograph and processing it for use within the Noise Ninja application itself … you would not have even noticed the application transition between Aperture and Noise Ninja … this said, as I am running on a Intel Core 2 Duo Processor (2.33 GHz) with 3 GB of Ram … it is a blazingly fast plugin application … well done Picture Code !

The photograph used within this post for comparisons was taken in Shaxoing, China … shortly after I made my Canon 30D purchase … I purposely set the ISO at 1600 to see the effect … so the noise within is what I wanted … 

EXIF Data - Canon 30D … 200mm … f/2.8 … 1/2500s … -1.0ev … ISO1600

Canon 30D Noise Ninja profile (CanonEOS30Diso16008mpjpg25e04sec.nzp) and accepted the default settings …

Cropped at 5 x 7

I did not make any other adjustments to this photograph other than the crop mentioned above … it is a raw file, no further modifications and processed as is through Noise Ninja using the default settings …

Noise Ninja states (When to apply noise reduction / thirty second guide) … and this is what I followed …

As a general principle, you should apply noise reduction as early as is practical in your workflow — ideally, before other editing operations like tone adjustment, color balancing, sharpening, or resizing. Adjustments like these can shift pixel values and distort noise levels in unpredictable ways, and this can make it more difficult for Noise Ninja to remove the noise effectively. Sharpening and resizing, in particular, should be deferred until after noise reduction when possible. (Modest amounts of in-camera sharpening are usually okay, however.)

To get immediate results from Noise Ninja, try the following (which I did):

Select one or more images in Aperture and then select Images > Edit With > Noise Ninja… from the Aperture menu bar (or right click on any image and select Edit With > Noise Ninja… from the pop-up menu).

You can click the Remove Noise button to apply the default noise reduction to all of the selected images (this is the simplest workflow). You can also adjust the filter settings individually for each image in the Noise Ninja browser and then apply the custom noise reduction to all of the selected images. Here is a simple strategy for adjusting the filter settings that usually yields good results:

Expand the Luminance settings group (click on the triangle icon).

Move the Luminance Strength slider all the way to the right (maximum strength, this will be decreased later).

Set the Luminance Smoothness slider to the lowest level that results in a smooth area without obvious speckling (you can start at the maximum setting and decrease bit by bit).

Reduce the Luminance Strength slider until you like the balance between noise reduction and detail preservation (it’s usually best to leave at least a small amount of grain in the image for a more photographic look).

While adjusting the settings you can drag the navigation tool in the navigation window on the right hand side to preview the results of the current settings in the preview window on the left hand side. You can also click inside the navigation tool or on the preview window to see the before and after effect of the current filter settings. Click the Remove Noise button to apply your custom filter settings to all of the selected images (the entire image will be filtered and the results returned to Aperture).

Now (mouse in) the photograph to see (Before Noise Ninja Applied) and (mouse out) of the photograph to see (After Noise Ninja Applied) … remember, you will be looking for the “subtle changes” .. and once you eyes are in tune, you will notice the reduced level of noise …

(Mouse In) the photograph to see (Before Noise Ninja Applied) and (Mouse Out) of the photograph to see (After Noise Ninja Applied)

To me, the photograph has an obvious overall improvement in noise reduction and facial imperfections are less pronounced … though I also notice a loss in overall contrast … but this can easily be bought back through further processing within Aperture … you be the final judge, though I like the results and have made the purchase …