Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "tzinzunzan2000" <ldmr@c...> 
wrote:
> I've thought of purchasing the isoX noise reduction PS action for 
> ocassional use on my BW images. (It only costs $15.) I was 
originally 
> written for digital cameras, but since it's a PS action it should be 
> applicable to any digital image being processed through PS. That 
> doesn't mean, however, that it will work with BW, although it could 
> of course be used with color images that would later be converted to 
> BW. Anyone have experience using this action -- either with color or 
> BW? 
> 
> Chris Hargens

Works with color only, and will convert a 16 bit down to 8 bit if you 
feed it that, so better do your curve correction, channel mixing, 
maybe spotting, etc before applying the action. It basically does 
bluring operation on each RGB channel in turn.

I didn't try it on a scanned film neg, but called up a digital 16 bit 
Canon digicam Raw tiff which had been shot at ISO 50 (the Canon G2 
allows ISO 50). I selected an image with an area of smooth pavement/ 
gravel, the texture of which resembled a sort of suedo-rough grain. Of 
course there was little noise at this ISO, but I applied the 100, 200, 
and 400 noise reduction for Canon G2 to this image, and compared to 
original. 

In all cases the texture didn't really lessen at all, it just got 
blurry. Not impressive. Of course it was trying to remove noise, not 
the texture in a roadway or film grain. But maybe that will at least 
give you an idea. I think it may be unfair to attempt to evaluate it's 
merits in accomplishing something it wasn't designed to do, my opinion 
only, and so will leave you with that disclaimer on my observations.
Jim H.