I am going to be making a set of D60 profiles using the NI profile target. However, many of my shots are exposed for highlights, with the lower midtones and shadow areas underexposed by 1, 2, or even 3 stops. I depend on Photoshop CS Shadows/Highlights command to pull the detail back out of the shadow areas, which brings out huge amounts of noise.
Should I make a set of profiles at each ISO setting, where I underexpose by 1, 2, and 3 stops, and then use Shadows/Highlights as if they were my typical shooting situations, and then use these processed images to build the profiles? Or would a regular set of profiles (at each ISO) be sufficient?
Profiling and Shadow/Highlight command
I think there are two questions here:
1) when to build profiles, before or after some additional post-processing (Shadows/Highlights)
2) whether build profiles for each ISO and exposure
With respect to the first question:
Neat Image uses device noise profiles that normally depend on camera parameters. If you build these profiles immediately after receiving the images from the camera (without postprocessing) then you just need to keep records of these camera parameters. If you do some processing (conversion, transformation, color balancing, etc.) and then build profiles, then you need to add a description of postprocessing steps to the device mode as the noise properties may be quite different after all these steps. You don't need to bother about recording all these postprocessing steps if you just use a profile once and then build a new one for every new image you process. However, if you want to reuse the profiles then you need to be accurate and keep records of both device mode and postprocessing applied. That is the only important consideration which may influence your decision on when to build profiles (and apply NI filter) within your workflow. From the standpoint of noise reduction itself, this choice is not very important as long as you apply noise reduction before such operations as sharpening ( see http://www.neatimage.com/qna.html#FQ8 ).
So, please take the above considerations into account and find a place in your workflow where building and using profiles is the most convenient for you.
I would use NI closer to the camera.
With respect to the second question, I think you need to make a little experiment. Build profiles for different shooting modes (including different exposure) and check the noise levels in the Profile Viewer (Ctrl+I). If the noise levels significantly depend on exposure then you probably need to take exposure into account to build profiles for your camera. Usually this is not necessary but better check this yourself with your camera and shooting modes.
Hope this helps.
Vlad
1) when to build profiles, before or after some additional post-processing (Shadows/Highlights)
2) whether build profiles for each ISO and exposure
With respect to the first question:
Neat Image uses device noise profiles that normally depend on camera parameters. If you build these profiles immediately after receiving the images from the camera (without postprocessing) then you just need to keep records of these camera parameters. If you do some processing (conversion, transformation, color balancing, etc.) and then build profiles, then you need to add a description of postprocessing steps to the device mode as the noise properties may be quite different after all these steps. You don't need to bother about recording all these postprocessing steps if you just use a profile once and then build a new one for every new image you process. However, if you want to reuse the profiles then you need to be accurate and keep records of both device mode and postprocessing applied. That is the only important consideration which may influence your decision on when to build profiles (and apply NI filter) within your workflow. From the standpoint of noise reduction itself, this choice is not very important as long as you apply noise reduction before such operations as sharpening ( see http://www.neatimage.com/qna.html#FQ8 ).
So, please take the above considerations into account and find a place in your workflow where building and using profiles is the most convenient for you.
I would use NI closer to the camera.
With respect to the second question, I think you need to make a little experiment. Build profiles for different shooting modes (including different exposure) and check the noise levels in the Profile Viewer (Ctrl+I). If the noise levels significantly depend on exposure then you probably need to take exposure into account to build profiles for your camera. Usually this is not necessary but better check this yourself with your camera and shooting modes.
Hope this helps.
Vlad
