NoiseXterminator has just been released - it's worth checking out!

[paul]

The guy behind StarXterminator (Russell Croman), has released NoiseXTerminator https://www.rc-astro.com/resources/NoiseXTerminator/for PI and PS. I tried it on my recent M51 (on the final PNG no less) and the results blow me away.

 

(Bonus 😀. If you've already purchased the StarXterminator you can obtain NoiseXterminator for a large discount.)

 

I am sure all you experienced image processors will be able to achieve these results using manual steps but I for one don't want to iterate through the process and spend longer than I need if there is a reliable tool.

 

Before:

 

After (with default settings):

 

Edited May 2, 2022 by paul

[paul]

IC410

 

 

[paul]

And here is NGC 4725. I initially tried noise reduction on the final PNG but the out limits of NGC4725 looked very sub-optimal. Applying noise reduction to the original XISF produces a much better final image.

 

I am looking forward to applying this tool much earlier in my future processing.

 

Before (8.6KB)

After (3.3KB)

 

Interestingly, but I guess to be expected, the jpg produced after noise reduction are significantly smaller too (win, win!).

[TerryMcK]

It looks like a very interesting addition to image processing armoury.

[paul]

Its still in Beta - but I can use it today. I plan to re-process M51, substituting for EZ Denoise in the workflow.
 

[Dmack1]

I've downloaded it and given it a whirl. I rountinely use EZ Denoise and honestly have been happy with it. However, I am pretty impressed with NoiseXterminator.

Here are three direct comparisons from the same image (cropped, gradients removed, decon). in each, the left panel is no noise reduction, middle is EZ denoise and right is NoiseXterminator. These are from my ASI 2600mc (which is not noisy anyway) but at only 1hr 45 integration was noisier than I would like. These are very tight crops to sho the noise clearly

 

 

My thoughts;

Boy its fast! about 1 tenth of the time of EZ denoise. In my view it is vastly superior to EZ denoise, doing a much better job. It could be argued, particularly in the horsehead, that its oversmoothed but it has an adjustment to allow you to reduce the effect. This was 82%. the default 90% was too smooth for me and 75% would probably have been enough - it was still way superior to EZ denoise but certainly not over smoothed. I showed the 82% as it shows the effect better. It also has an adjustment to recover detail, This was set at 32% in the above but could be tweaked up further - though I did not try it. but it is so quick it would be easy to trial setting to get what you want.

For me this is a definite leap forward.

What do you think?

[TerryMcK]

The results look good so far from what you all have produced. I already have StarXTerminator so will download NoiseXTerminator and try it out myself.

[Sonyme]

Very interesting.  G

[TerryMcK]

Warren Keller has done a quick comparison video review in the Quick Tips section of MastersOfPixInsight using established PixInsight methods such as MLT and TGVD against NoiseXTerminator and noted it comes up with great results.

 

https://www.mastersofpixinsight.com/quick-tips

 

I purchased it from Russell yesterday at the discounted price of $39.95 as I already bought StarXTerminator a while back. Initial results from using it show that NoiseXTerminator gives similar results that I get with Topaz Denoise.

 

I experimented with the settings to retain some sharpness in de-starred images and found this worked well on a typical busy nebula that has a good luminance layer without looking over processed.

 

 

If you use that on an image with stars present you have to be careful about dark halos in the stars if you go too high with "Detail" as noted by Russell in the usage notes "In general, the best value for Detail is a bit lower than a value that produces dark halos around small stars."

 

It is very quick though and I was pleasantly surprised just how fast it works.

[paul]

RC's comment on other AI denoisers is that they are general photography tools but his training data is pure astro so should give as good if not better results. I have Paintshop-Pro with its various anti-noise tools, they made a difference for low res social media posts but they are a blunt tool - even the "AI" version).

[AstronomyUkraine]

I'm a little late on this thread, but have just downloaded NoiseXterminator for a very good price of $39.95. I noticed the AI is now on version 2. A few tweaks seem to be needed to achieve optimal results in Pixinsight.

 

• If processing a linear (unstretched) image in PixInsight:

• Neutralize the background first. Don't unlink STFs – actually neutralize the background.
• Make sure the Linear checkbox is checked.

Make sure PixInsight is configured to use 24-bit STF lookup tables. Otherwise you might see what looks like posterization in your image, when it is really just limitations of the lower-precision default lookup tables.

 

To configure the 24 bit lookup tables, go into global preferences/miscellanious image window settings and check the box marked, use 24 bit screen transfer function LUT's by default.