AKVIS Noise Buster Review

The advent of digital photography has proven to be a godsend to both professional and amateur photographers alike. This technology has freed us from the confines that once existed with film based photography where most amateur photographers and some professionals were merely willing participants in a three-step process that led to a finished image. Those steps consisted of: 1) Capturing the image on film; 2) Processing or developing the image (creating a negative); and 3) Printing the image on photographic paper. In short, you could capture the best photo possible, but your "work of art" was at the mercy of the person(s) involved in the final two steps. Today's digital cameras have given consumers somewhat of a free reign over the complete presentation of their work.

Digital photography is not however without its drawbacks. The digital consumer has had to learn a whole new bunch of tricks to perfect his/her work; namely becoming proficient with the use of digital editing software. Many excellent software products such as Adobe Photoshop, Corel (Jasc) PaintShop Pro, and Ulead PhotoImpact have been developed solely for this purpose, and each does its job quite well. Even with powerful tools such as these there are still some areas of digital editing that need strengthening. The product we're going to study today, AKVIS Noise Buster, fills one of those gaps.

AKVIS Noise Buster is a plug-in that works with the the above captioned video editors as well as many others to reputedly help reduce and smooth the ill effects that digital noise creates in your photos and other digital imagery.

For the record, let me state I am at best an amateur photographer who uses digital imagery primarily in capturing photos for presentation when reviewing computer related products and also for taking and archiving family photos. I have an average knowledge of this subject, so this product review will hopefully be a learning experience for me as well as those that read this article.

What Is Digital Noise?

While I have a fair understanding of the concept of digital noise, I thought it in the best interest of this review to find a solid working definition that was simplistic enough for the beginner yet meaty enough for the more advanced digital photographer. Was this an easy task? Absolutely not! For that reason, I chose to paraphrase and cut and paste excerpts from several more technical references to meet the need of this review.

Digital Noise:   anything visible in the captured image that was not present in the scene you originally photographed. Noise can consist of random flecks of color that serve to degrade the smooth or transitional color of an image. While digital noise can appear in many forms, it can be predominantly seen as grains that compromise the smoothness of the photo. It is especially annoying on the skin as it makes it appear uneven. This kind of noise is called luminance noise. There is chroma (color) noise, which is perceived as random red and blue pixels spoiling the color accuracy of the image. Digital noise can be produced by a number of factors: heating of the camera sensor, long exposure shooting, small pixel size, high ISO settings, radiant light reflections, etc.

AKVIS Noise Buster claims the ability to reduce both luminance and color noise on digital images without spoiling other aspects of your photo. We'll investigate this claim in more detail later in the review.

Installation

Remember AKVIS Noise Buster is a plug-in so setup is incumbent upon having one of the following photo editing tools installed:

• Windows Products:
  • Adobe Photoshop
  • Adobe Photoshop Elements
  • Corel Photo-Paint
  • Corel Painter
  • Corel (Jasc) PaintShop Pro
  • Ulead PhotoImpact
  • ACD FotoCanvas / Photo Editor
  • Macromedia Fireworks/MX 2004
  • Microsoft Digital Image Suite
  • Photo-Brush
• MAC Products:
  • Adobe Photoshop
  • Adobe Photoshop Elements
  • GraphicConverter X

My editing program is Jasc PaintShop Pro version 9.01 (the last version produced entirely by Jasc prior to being purchased by Corel), one of the supported packages. Installation was completely straightforward, consisting of starting the setup file (akvis-noise-buster-setup.exe) and following the on-screen instructions. Noise Buster requires registration and licensing once the 10-day fully functional trial period has elapsed. A registration code is emailed to the user after paying the $49.95 USD registration fee.