This noise reduction test pits the new NeatImage 64-bit plug-in (Released December 12, 2008) against Photoshop CS4's native noise reduction routines.

The pictures, one at ISO 6400 and the other at ISO 100, were taken with Canon's 5D Mark II camera with a 24-105mm f/4L IS lens attached. The pictures themselves are 21 megapixel and captured in RAW. When the images were opened in Camera RAW they were converted to the 'Prophoto RGB' color space at '16-bit' depth for entry into CS4.

It should be noted that strict default settings were used in order to be a true apples-to-apples test. By making custom fine adjustments the noise reduction with either program could be improved.

NeatImage camera profiles for the 5DII for ISO levels from 100 to 6400 were created special for this test. Except for noise reduction being applied, the images are strictly out-of-camera 100% crops with no post processing of any sort applied.

The last two images are exceptions. They are full sized versions of the two images used for the test. This allows you to easily see how much of the image makes up the 100% crop. The only thing done to the full sized crops are they were resized down to 800 pixels wide for upload.

As you can see, the 100% crops are a very small portion of the full sized image... assuming you can find the 100% crops in the full image at all. :)
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