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.

I was in the mood to edit a Dubai photo today, probably from seeing all the great photos from my friends from there. So I looked back through my Lightroom catalog, and chosen one I tried before, but never finished.

This spot is still quite close to the Burj Khalifa to get it into one shot (I so regret not having a tilt shift lens :/) so I tried for a vertorama here. I did lost quite a lot from the photo due to a lot of perspective distortion, but in the end, there is still enough :). This is a two shot vertorama, both exposures edited in Lightroom, combined in PTgui and finished in Photoshop.

This is probably my most favorite photo spot in Vienna. The calm pond is just so great for reflection. That is if the water is there, and there is no stage in the middle :) This is of course the St. Charles’s Church (Karlskirche).

Most of this photo is from single exposure, but I had to use a second exposure to darken the tower (the lights there are crazy bright) and another exposure to brighten few shadows.

Technique: Photoshop edit, Number of exposures: 2, Camera Model: Sony a7R + Metabones Adapter ver. IV, Lens: Canon 16-35mm F2.8, Focal length: 16mm, Aperture: 9, Middle exposure time: 6s, ISO: 200, Tripod used: yes, Location: 48.19907, 16.37126

Strange Twitter experience

I had a strange experience with Twitter yesterday. I don’t use it all the time, but visit every few days, to check whats new there. But recently, I seen only post that were really strange. Nothing from my interests (which is mostly photos of course :)), and a lot of posts from people and companies I never heard from. Stuff like gold exchanges, reality companies, bands I never heard of, sport clubs, makeup products and similar.

So I started looking into who I follow, and started unfolowing those I did not recognize. In the end, I had to unfollow 350 accounts in a row, before I got to the ones I knew about, and know I followed them. Now I wonder, if my account was hacked sometime in the past, as I can’t find any other explanation for this. Any of you had a similar experience there?

Sparkling in the night

Those of you who were in Paris know, that the Eiffel tower sparkles each hour after sunset. This looks great, but it’s a bit harder to catch in a photo, as it’s quite late and it’s already dark. And even here, you still see all the sparkling lights on, as even a bit longer exposure captures them all on. But I can live with that :)

This is a again mostly a single exposure, edited in Lightroom and Photoshop. I used a bit of a second exposure, to add a bit of detail in the foreground trees, even if I left them quite dark in the end.

Technique: Photoshop edit, Number of exposures: 2, Camera Model: Sony a7R + Metabones MkIII Adapter, Lens: Canon 70-200mm F2.8 IS II, Focal length: 165mm, Aperture: 7.1, Middle exposure time: 4.0s, ISO: 100, Tripod used: yes, Location: 48.842261, 2.321754