NIK software question

[Herb Cunningham]

I got the NIK software suite, a local pro I know is very big on it, and I think it is pretty good.

My question, and don't think me totally stupid, but I think the "dfine" software is unnecessary for scanned film, unless somehow one would have super grainy scans.

I scanned some Tmax 400 at 4000dpi and found that using the dfine (noise reduction) actually reduced sharpness.
this may be to my ineptness in using the noise reduction software, but it would seem if you have a good scanned image, wth good is noise reduction?
I can see it in a digital RAW image, but don't see the usefulness in a good film scan.

 

[Paul Jenkin]

I bought Silver Efex Pro and have used the trial version of all other Nik software. It is really good.

However, I have never found any noise reduction software that doesn't have an adverse impact on sharpness. I can only presume that there's a trade off between edge sharpness and "smoothing" when trying to reduce noise.

However, grain is not noise. It's meant to be there. I don't think you're stupid at all but the only option for lower "noise" film images would seem to be to use a lower ISO film.

I couldn't agree more that there is little or no point in applying a noise reduction programme to a scanned tranny or negative.