Device Noise Profiling

A device noise profile describes the properties of noise produced by an imaging device (e. g. digital camera, scanner, etc.) working in a certain mode. Specific flat featureless (noise-only) image areas are used to build such profiles. Examples of image areas that can and cannot be used to build a profile are located at the bottom of this page.

Building a Noise Profile

Auto Profile function in Neat Image can automatically find flat featureless areas if such areas exist in the input image. You can also select such an area manually.

To build a noise profile:

• click the Auto Profile button to automatically find and analyze a flat featureless area in the input image
  or
• select such an area manually and then click the Auto Profile button to automatically analyze the selected area

Aim to find a large featureless area (128x128 or larger) and use smaller areas (32x32 or larger) only when forced to. If an image does not contain such featureless areas, you can use either another image from the same series or the Calibration Target to build a new noise profile for the input image. The Calibration Target is specifically designed to easily build reusable profiles for various imaging devices. It can be used to build a single profile for a certain device mode or a set of profiles for different modes. 

An imaging device can work in several different modes. Preparing a set of profiles for different device modes enables accurate processing of arbitrary images produced by this device. Such profiles better reflect the specifics of the camera or scanner as well as the workflow you use. To learn how to plan, build and structure a set of profiles please refer to User Guide (section "Preparing profile set for different device modes"). The user guide can be opened from the main Neat Image window by pressing F1 or downloaded separately.

Using Noise Profiles

Once you build a set of noise profiles for a specific device yourself or download a ready profile set for your camera or scanner from the profile library, you can use the the Auto Match function in Neat Image. This function will automatically find and load a noise profile that best matches the specific device mode used to take a photo. This may be useful in situations when an image does not contain featureless areas and a profile cannot be built automatically. Another useful function of Neat Image is Smart Profile which performs both Auto Profile and Auto Match and selects the best of the two obtained profiles.

Examples

These two images demonstrate several flat featureless areas (marked with white frames) thay can be used for building noise profiles.

As you can see, some areas are marked with black frames. It means there are some important detals in those areas, they are not featureless and cannot be used to build a profile.