Lightroom 3 - finally noise reduction works

[Nigel Allan]

I just recently upgraded my PC to Win 7 Ultimate 64 bit with 8GB ram.

Lovely spec but it brought its own challenges, namely finding new programs which run on it....however...I decided to install Adobe Lightroom 3 64bit for Win 7 (I had v 2.3 and 2.5 previously) and I had an epiphany...the 'Luminance' slider for noise reduction actually reduces noise!! Shock horror...it had never made the slightest difference in previous versions but now it seems they've got it right...and what a difference...


It is not often that a 3.0 is SO MUCH better than a 2.5 version of something, but I am really happy with this version. Great job

[Andrew Stannard]

Agreed! The new noise reduction (colour and luminance) is a vast improvement over the 2.x versions.

The new raw processing algorithms also seem to extract considerably more detail from many images (landscapes particularly).

[Mike Shimwell]

Originally Posted by Nigel Allan

I just recently upgraded my PC to Win 7 Ultimate 64 bit with 8GB ram.

Lovely spec but it brought its own challenges, namely finding new programs which run on it....however...I decided to install Adobe Lightroom 3 64bit for Win 7 (I had v 2.3 and 2.5 previously) and I had an epiphany...the 'Luminance' slider for noise reduction actually reduces noise!! Shock horror...it had never made the slightest difference in previous versions but now it seems they've got it right...and what a difference...


It is not often that a 3.0 is SO MUCH better than a 2.5 version of something, but I am really happy with this version. Great job

Hi Nigel

Nice to hear that there's an improvement. I never use luminance NR in LR 2.x (x=2 in my case!) as it just gives a horrible smeared look to pictures. How is it behaving opertaionally and speed wise. I know that some people have had a pretty poor experience with it? Cem commented that it crashes every session and is slow on his machine.

MIke

[Nigel Allan]

All I can say is it works and Andy is correct that it seems to somehow reveal so much more detail and sharpness than I ever saw from the very same shots in the 2.x versions...it's like a different program altogether.

Is that because I am now using 64bit or due to better algorithms? I don't know, but even the pixelation I used to experience when magnifying a small area onscreen, which I attributed to the low resolution of the D300 (pixel-envy), has been greatly reduced.

[Nill Toulme]

It's the new NR and sharpening algorithms... superb. The NR in particular puts C1 and everything else to shame. Just wish I could wrap my head around the workflow, but it's not happening.

Nill

[charlie chipman]

Originally Posted by Mike Shimwell

Hi Nigel

How is it behaving opertaionally and speed wise. I know that some people have had a pretty poor experience with it? Cem commented that it crashes every session and is slow on his machine.

MIke

I have the same spec machine as Nigel for reference. It's not crashing for me but there are times where it takes a bit of time to load. For example when I switch from library mode to develop mode sometimes it will take some time to gather its thoughts before the adjustments will show on the screen. After this it behaves pretty quickly though.

That is my experience so far after using it for only a few days.

[Nigel Allan]

Originally Posted by charlie chipman

I have the same spec machine as Nigel for reference. It's not crashing for me but there are times where it takes a bit of time to load. For example when I switch from library mode to develop mode sometimes it will take some time to gather its thoughts before the adjustments will show on the screen. After this it behaves pretty quickly though.

That is my experience so far after using it for only a few days.

Yes, there's a very slight delay as it renders stuff but I put that down to the amount of work it must be doing in the background to deliver the level of detail and sharpness I have not seen before...small price to pay...never crashes...just works, and now even has lens-specific corrections.

I like it a lot, and my skill and experience level in digital post production is kindergarten stage...it is not my strong suit

[Mike Shimwell]

I had a quick play with the trial version tonight - I've a job to do over the next couple of days - and it didn't crash, but it does seem fairly slow and resource hungry. Having said that I'm still a dual core 4Gb 32 bit XP user

Mike

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Originally Posted by Mike Shimwell

I had a quick play with the trial version tonight - I've a job to do over the next couple of days - and it didn't crash, but it does seem fairly slow and resource hungry. Having said that I'm still a dual core 4Gb 32 bit XP user

Hi Mike,

Perhaps that prevented the crashes that Cem has been experiencing. If I'm not mistaken, the system he is running his LR3 from is a 64-bit Intel processor based one, on Win-7, and with more memory. Maybe that has something to do with it?

The overwhelming consensus amongst various users seems to be that LR3 is slower than 2.7 though ... :-(

Cheers,
Bart

[Nigel Allan]

Originally Posted by Bart_van_der_Wolf

Hi Mike,

Perhaps that prevented the crashes that Cem has been experiencing. If I'm not mistaken, the system he is running his LR3 from is a 64-bit AMD processor based one, on Win-7, and with more memory. Maybe that has something to do with it?

The overwhelming consensus amongst various users seems to be that LR3 is slower than 2.7 though ... :-(

Cheers,
Bart

Slower or not is immaterial to me - it produces better results from what I can see and has a better interface