Before

PictureCode has released this week an Aperture plugin version of their very popular Noise Ninja. Noise Ninja provides users with high quality, camera specific noise reduction. The plugin will be available for download on their site as a free demo and a software key for the full version can be purchased for $79.95. Customers who bought earlier versions of the Pro Bundle can upgrade for $20.

When I heard about this new plugin I immediately got excited about one very specific thing–my Nikon D2H files! A few years ago I was one of the unlucky individuals who bought a brand new Nikon D2H. In hand the camera was remarkable. It shot at 8 fps, and had a seemingly never ending buffer, even when shooting Nikon’s raw format. It was built like a tank and could withstand just about anything I was able to throw at it.

However, the original Nikon D2H suffered in one area that was a deal-breaker for me–NOISE!!! This camera was simply awful at high ISO. It was especially bad in mixed, artificial light. As a Washington D.C. photographer, covering politics on Capitol Hill, I was nearly ALWAYS working in these types of situations.

To better illustrate what Noise Ninja can do for my old D2H files, check out this set I have created on flickr.com. I have posted 5 screen shots displaying a quick edit on an image I liked of former D.C. Mayor Marion Barry. Here he is speaking at a podium just after being sworn in as a D.C. Council Member–go figure.

In each screen shot I have added a short commentary about the noise issues and how Noise Ninja was able to help me solve them. If you are logged in to flickr, you can also see larger versions by clicking “All Sizes.”

After

So far I am pretty impressed with this plugin. The price is pretty reasonable, and the simplified interface is very welcome compared to the Photoshop version.

For more information, please check out the press release after the jump.
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Hot on the heals of Silver Efex Pro, Nik Software has just released an Aperture plugin version of Color Efex Pro 3.0.

Nik Software Color Efex Pro™ 3.0 filters are the leading photographic filters for digital photography. The award-winning Color Efex Pro 3.0 filters are widely used by many of today’s professional photographers around the world to save time and get professional level results. Whether you choose the Complete Edition, Select Edition, or Standard Edition, you’ll get traditional and stylizing filters that offer virtually endless possibilities to enhance and transform images quickly and easily.

Check out all the details in their press release here.

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I have a need to start working on an Aperture Edit plugin for personal reasons. For the next two years I will be working towards an MFA in Photographic and Electronic Media at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore Maryland. During this experience I will be taking lots of pictures, and developing a long term documentary project. However, in addition to my traditional work, I will be adding a component to my exhibition and thesis that has to do with the visualization of my images.

You can read more about this at the website I have set up to document my project at Entropy Art.

Using an Aperture Edit plugin to manage my digital image processing makes perfect sense to me. I can create a suite of routines, have them be customizable in any way I want, and have them directly integrated with Aperture. This will keep my workflow simple and will keep all of my images and thesis work in one place.
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Nik Software has announced an exciting new plugin for Aperture and Photoshop called Silver Efex Pro. Silver Efex Pro is, according to Nik, “the most advanced, complete, and straightforward black-and-white solution. Suggested retail price for the package is $199. For more information be sure to check out the Nik website at Nik Software or check out their press release by clicking here.

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Italian software developer, DataMind Srl, has released Jade 1.0, a digital image processing plugin, which uses state-of-the-art algorithms to enhance color, contrast and dynamic range in an easy-to-use tool that will automatically improve digital images directly in Aperture.

Beside a “One-Button” automatic image enhancement tool, Jade also provides manual controls to fine-tune intensity values, the contrast of the image and the color correction for unbalanced images.

Jade Plugin 1.0 is offered in both Standard and Pro versions, and are available as a full-featured 30 day demo.

Jade Standard is €19.99, and Jade Plugin Pro is €49.99. A discount is offered to customers who have purchased a Jade 1.x application license.

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When the dynamic range of a scene is beyond the gamut of a single exposure, Hydra can use multiple (different) exposures of the same scene (up to 4) and blend them into one image.

Unlike some HDR (high dynamic range) programs, Hydra does not require the use of a tripod to insure pixel-to-pixel matching of images. Instead, a method of matching key points in the images is utilized. For many example, see the Flickr HDR Pool.

Hydra is available as a demo, and can be purchased for $59.95.

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The Tiffen Dfx digital filter suite is the definitive set of digital optical filters. Up to 1000 filters, including simulations of many popular award-winning Tiffen glass filters, specialized lenses, optical lab processes, film grain, exacting color correction plus natural light and photographic effects–are now in a controlled digital environment with either 8 or 16 bits per channel processing.

A 15-day free trial is available via download.

A quick video tour of the product is available here.

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One of three Aperture plugins from Digital Film Tools, Power Stroke introduces a simple, interactive stroke-based interface to quickly and intuitively perform targeted adjustments. Instead of meticulously selecting regions or hand-painting masks, regions of interest are isolated by drawing a few simple brush strokes with adjustments then made only in those areas. Strokes can be assigned multiple adjustments and effects such as color correction, recoloring or desaturation, colorization of black and white images, blur, fill light for dimly lit image areas and Diffusion/Glow.

The $120 program is available as a “demo“.

See also Light 3.5 and Ozone 2.5 from Digital Film Tools.

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One of three Aperture plugins from Digital Film Tools, Ozone is inspired by Ansel Adams’ Zone System for still photography. Ozone allows you to manipulate the color of an image with incredible flexibility and accuracy using a Digital Zone System. The Digital Zone System takes the spectrum of image values and divides them into 11 discrete zones. The color, brightness, contrast and gamma of each zone can be independently adjusted until you’ve painted a new picture.

The $50 program is available as a “demo“.

See also Light 3.5 and Power Stroke 1.0 from Digital Film Tools.

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One of three Aperture plugins from Digital Film Tools, Light 3.5 utilizes a light and texture library that includes windows, doors, leaves and abstract patterns, you can add realistic lighting and shadow to scenes just as if you were adding a light at the time of shooting.

Normally used in front of the lights during photography, these patterns can now be applied digitally to the entire image or insicde a selection. There are 565 patterns to choose from in the included library.

The $50 program is available as a “demo“.

See also Power Stroke 1.0 and Ozone 2.5 from Digital Film Tools.

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