LR2 Noise Reduction...

[Candid Arts]

Question regarding this. The only thing I see in LR2 for noise reduction is in the Develop tab, scroll way to the bottom by the sharpening area. There is one slider for NR and one below that for color (which I don't get?). Every time I have a "noisy" photo, I play around with the NR slider and I never really get good results, it just seems to smooth the noise out versus make it go away in any amount. Is there some other way to apply NR in LR2? Or do I NEED to get a NR software. I've seen a few mentioned on here before, but have zero experience with them.

I'm looking at some shots from my local zoo of a penguin, shot at ISO 800 f/4 at 1/20th. They are fairly sharp (considering the 1/20th), but there is a bit of noise. I'm shooting a 50D, the glass was the 24-105 f/4L, I believe I have NR turned on in-camera... Any tips? I've been unsatisfied thus far with the high ISO performance (by high I'm looking at 400[sometimes] but 800 and above more often).

Thanks!

[arodney]

Keep in mind, you have to zoom to 1:1 to see the effects of the NR (or that small preview window).

There are two kinds of noise. Color noise is corrected with that slider so named.

[Candid Arts]

Keep in mind, you have to zoom to 1:1 to see the effects of the NR (or that small preview window).

There are two kinds of noise. Color noise is corrected with that slider so named.

I am zooming to 1:1 as well as looking in the little preview window. It just doesn't seem to do much.

[arodney]

I am zooming to 1:1 as well as looking in the little preview window. It just doesn't seem to do much.

No question its not going to take, say a 1600 ISO noisy image and "fix it" like we see in something like Noiseware. It helps, but its not robust enough for lots of work.