Noise reduction using Neat Image

I usually try not to stray above ISO 1000 during a wedding but occasionally the light levels are so low I have no choice. The above close-up comes from Laura and Paul's wedding last year at St George's Church in Deal and was taken at ISO 3200. Apparently more recent digital cameras (in particular the Nikon D3) are getting very good at reducing noise at high ISO settings but for the venerable Canon EOS 5D it clearly is an issue. Still at least you can get the shot - that's the most important thing.

All is not lost however - digital noise can be dramatically reduced. Both Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop have this facility but produce a rather unreal, "plasticky" effect. Much better is Neat Image which can be bought as a plug-in for Photoshop and which was used to clean up the above shot. I created a personalised noise profile for my 5D, to make it more accurate, and set up noise reduction and sharpening as a Photoshop droplet, to automate the process. Now all my images are cleaned and sharpened automatically. Very handy.