Actually PictureCode offers upgrade prices that just reflect the difference in prices between the different versions available, so you can purchase the Home edition and pay just $35 to upgrade to the Pro edition later on. This makes more sense than originally purchasing the Pro edition if you are not sure you are going to need it in the future.

Terry

Quote: "Automatic is the easiest way. Noise Ninja analyses the entire photograph for evidence of luminosity and chroma noise. This is quick and easy, but the automatic proiler can be fooled as it looks for areas free of detail."

If the automatic profile selects an area with texture, eg wood or cloth, that particular sample can be removed by clicking on it with the right mouse button. Also extra areas can be added as in manual profiling.

True, you can "hint" the automatic profile. as you describe.

My perception, based on discussions with people at Imagenomic, Nik, etc. is that most users never do anything other than automatic profiling and automatic filter settings.

If they do that, they should be aware that the automatic profiling is very good, but it is not perfect and it can be fooled.

Unlike tools like Neat Image that rely more on a small number of large samples, Noise Ninja relies on a large number of small samples. Neither is optimal. A couple of large samples can be unrepresentative. Small samples might not adequately capture enough information to distinguish noise from photographic detail.

Your comment reminds me and others that you can supplement the automatic profile with some larger samples.

I inadvertently merged the conclusion from Nik Dfine with he Noise Ninja review today. I just posted another revision that fixes the problem. Sorry! That's two demerits today. :)

Mitch. Really appreciate your in depth review. Especially like seeing how the tools fit into work flow. Thanks. Les

Website http://www.ncsparks.com

I use Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro to generate my .PDF files for reviews, tutorials, etc. Mac and Linux users sometimes opt for third-party tools or the file viewer that is part of the Mac OS.

There have been some reported incompatibilities. They seem to involve the password security that I add to my .PDF files. Readers are allowed to print high resolution, add annotations, etc. ut they are not allowed to modify the .PDF, extract images, etc.

I recommend that readers of .PDF files from this site download and use Acrobat Reader. The most recent version of Acrobat Reader does not have these incompatibilities with .PDF files from Adobe Acrobat Pro 9.

I have had a couple of helpful discussions by e-mail and by phone with the team at PictureCode. Mostly about their design philosophy and matters of emphasis.

I'm going to think about those comments for a couple of days and also reread the .PDF for typos.

This is typical of my reviews. I listen to the comments and suggestions from the software engineers and vendors. Then I think about those comments. After that, I make changes I feel are appropriate.

Same with comments from readers here and in different forums. I read them, think about them, and perhaps make changes to the reviews.

When the reviews are a .PDF file, it's easy to treat the reviews as an evolving conversation.

In this case, no serious omissions or factual errors have been pointed out. The discussions have focused more on clarifications and emphasis that will make the points I was addressing clearer. I very much appreciate the time that the team at PictureCode spent with me to improve the review. :)