User Guide

User Guide Neat Image

20-Nov-03

it). This is the typical noise produced by the Nikon CoolPix 950 digital camera. The task of Neat Image

is to eliminate this noise. To do that the program generally needs some information about the noise. We

have prepared this information in advance and saved it in a sample device noise profile. This profile is

supplied with the test-kit in the file SampleProfile.dnp. Using the noise profile, Neat Image can

efficiently eliminate noise in the image.

Step 2. Open the sample device noise profile

1. Switch to the Device Noise Profile tab:

2. Click

(blue disk) in the Device Noise Profile box on the right panel;

3. In the Open device noise profile dialog, navigate to the folder/directory where the sample

device noise profile has been unzipped and double click on the file SampleProfile.dnp;

Now the sample device noise profile is opened and Neat Image is almost ready to filter the sample

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 file that stores ‘good’ filter settings suitable for the

sample image.

Step 3. Open the sample filter preset

1. Switch to the Noise Filter Settings tab:

2. Click

(pink disk) in the Filter Preset box on the right panel;

3. In the Open filter preset dialog, navigate to the folder/directory where the sample filter preset

has been unzipped and double click on the file SamplePreset.nfp;

Now the sample filter preset is opened and the filter settings are adjusted to process the sample image.

Step 4. Apply the filter

1. Switch to the Output Image tab:

2. Click

on the toolbar and wait until the progress indicator disappears.

Processing may take some time (this depends on the speed of your computer's CPU). Then the filtered

output image is displayed. You can click the image to compare it with the input image. Notice that the

noise – especially in sky area – has been significantly reduced while the image details have been

preserved.

Please note that the sample device noise profile and sample filter preset supplied with the test-kit are

suitable only for images taken with that particular digital camera working in certain mode. Neat Image

can perform similar noise reduction on images captured or acquired by any image acquisition devices

working in any mode. To be able to do that Neat Image needs specific device noise profiles that describe

the noise characteristics of those devices. The good news is that you can build these profiles yourself.

With Neat Image, you can easily do this because the program can automatically build the profiles by

analyzing noise samples selected by you. Also, you can find ready-made device noise profiles for many

digital cameras and scanners in the Profiles

section of Neat Image web page.

The next sections – Filtration process details, page 9, and Building device noise profiles, page 16,–

contain detailed descriptions of the filtration process and building custom device noise profiles. There

are also several examples of profiling and filtration in the Examples

section of Neat Image web page.