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v9 Neat Image

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Neat Image
   
Neat Image

Best noise reduction for digital cameras and scanners

Neat Image is computer software that removes digital noise from photographic images and also performs other image quality improvements.

Neat Image reduces high ISO noise, grain, artifacts in images from digital cameras, flatbed and slide scanners.

It is available as a standalone application for Windows, macOS, and Linux, and also as a plugin for Photoshop (Windows, macOS).

Neat Image improves digital photos from cameras, scanned negative and positive films as well as scanned printed photos.

Neat Image works as a special-purpose digital filter. Our filter is specifically designed to reduce visible noise in digital photographic images. In digital camera shots, image noise generally comes from two key sources: random nature of the captured light and imperfect nature of image sensor and camera circuitry, especially in high ISO modes. In scanned images from legacy sources, silver halide grain from high speed film is the main source of noise.

Wherever your images come from, Neat Image can deliver beautiful images with noise and grain notably reduced. Digital images taken with any equipment, processed with Neat Image, will often look as though they were taken under optimal conditions with more expensive gear. Scanned archive images and prints can look contemporary, and can be as grain- and pattern-free as possible. Neat Image greatly improves the visual quality of digital images by reducing the objectionable noise and grain and at the same time preserving the true image details.

Neat Image effectively reduces these kinds of noise:

  • Luminance noise
  • Color (chroma) noise
  • Banding noise
  • Salt-and-pepper (impulse) noise
  • Electronic interference noise
  • Film grain
  • JPEG artifacts
  • In-camera noise reduction artifacts
  • Some other image imperfections
neat image denoise bird before neat image denoise bird after

This picture of an Indian roller taken with a long-zoom Canon PowerShot SX60 camera was suffering from noise and artifacts from in-camera noise reduction. Neat Image considerably reduced these imperfections, preserving and recovering fine details.

Photo courtesy of Hilary White.

Neat Image Features

Highest-quality noise reduction and sharpening

Advanced noise filter

Neat Image is programmed to filter noise more effectively, and preserving more image details, than current research has indicated is possible. A recent development in noise reduction that is usually regarded as state of the art is wavelet-based denoising. However, Neat Image uses an even more efficient proprietary approach to noise reduction. Our noise filtering method distinguishes more effectively between noise and details in noisy images than wavelet denoising. As a result, it reduces noise better and preserves more true details in digital photographs.

Complete control over noise reduction

Direct control over all noise filter settings. You can adjust the noise level estimation and specify how much of the detected noise must be removed for every color channel component and spatial frequency component of input image. The default filter settings work very well for most images. But if you want to tweak the filter settings, then all the controls are directly available.

Smart sharpening filter

Neat Image provides an intelligent sharpening filter. This sharpening filter works together with the noise filter to avoid noise, and makes the actual image details look sharper without any degradation of image quality (which is usually inevitable with noisy images). Neat Image sharpening also has a halo-free mode which reduces halos that tend to appear along edges in images which are sharpened.

Support for 16/32-bit per channel images *

Besides regular 8-bit images (like most JPEGs), the Pro edition also supports 16-bit and 32-bit per channel format in both RGB and grayscale images. This allows Neat Image to process higher bitdepth images from modern DSLRs without loss of accuracy, support HDR workflow using 32-bit data, and integrate better with modern image editors like Photoshop CC.

Speeding up with CUDA- and OpenCL-acceleration

Neat Image can take good advantage of your computer’s graphics hardware and multi-core capabilities. We process images faster on computers with modern NVIDIA GPUs supporting CUDA technology and also with certain OpenCL-capable AMD/ATI GPUs. In addition, Neat Image can use multiple GPUs and combine the computation power of GPUs with regular multi-core CPU for maximum performance.

Device noise profiles

Neat Image produces better noise reduction by being aware of your imaging equipment. It uses device noise profiles which are reusable analyses of noise properties of a particular image acquisition device — such as a digital camera or a scanner — working in a certain mode. The noise profile makes Neat Image noise reduction custom-tailored for example to a specific digital camera and specific shooting mode. This provides the highest accuracy of noise reduction for images produced by that camera.

Auto Profile to automatically build profiles for your camera or scanner

Neat Image can automatically make necessary noise analysis of the input image from your camera or scanner to build a custom noise profile specifically for this image.

You can also manually select a featureless image area for noise analysis and let Neat Image do the rest automatically.

Batch Profiler

Neat Image includes a special Calibration Target to shoot a series of test shots and then automatically build noise profiles for the whole set using the Batch Profiler. This helps you easily develop your own set of profiles for your digital camera (or scanner).

Profile library: a rich set of free pre-built noise profiles

Profile library contains many free pre-built sets of noise profiles for digital cameras and scanners prepared by Neat Image users and shared with the community.

Profile matching

When a ready-made profile set is available, Neat Image can automatically select the profile that best matches the input image based on its EXIF data with the help of the Auto Match feature. This capability is especially useful in batch processing and Photoshop actions.

Photoshop plug-in and standalone application

Standalone Application

Neat Image is available as a standalone application. You do not have to be a user of any particular image editor to make your images look cleaner, sharper, better. Just download Neat Image standalone — available for Windows, OS X, and Linux — and you can start improving your image library right away.

Photoshop plug-in

Neat Image is also available as a plugin for Photoshop (or Photoshop Elements, or another compatible editor). It is fully integrated with Photoshop: you can apply noise reduction exactly where it is required: in a layer, channel or selection. Using Photoshop’s selection tools, you can apply noise reduction with different strength to different parts of the image. You can use Neat Image Pro plug-in as a smart filter in Photoshop CS3 or newer.

Any file format supported by the plug-in host can be processed by the Neat Image plug-in. For example, you can open a PSD, TIFF, JPEG, JPEG2000, RAW, DNG, etc., image in Photoshop and then directly process it with the Neat Image plug-in. This streamlines the use of Neat Image noise reduction in your workflow.

Actions and batch processing

Neat Image standalone

Powerful batch processing features *

Save time, increase production and reduce errors by taking advantage of Neat Image’s batch processing capabilities. Create several filtration tasks (one task is one input image) and let Neat Image process the tasks one after another. You can create such tasks manually one by one or automatically using the Batch tool.

Background processing

Don’t let image processing take over your workflow. Neat Image can automatically process batches of images in the background. Meanwhile you can still use Neat Image to prepare new images and batches, manually process individual images, or verify processing results. You can also use other applications, too, since Neat Image behaves nicely in a multi-task environment.

Photoshop plug-in

Support for Photoshop actions *

Neat Image is integrated with Photoshop’s actions. You can record a Photoshop action with the plug-in and later automatically re-apply (or play) it to other images. Neat Image behavior in actions is fully configurable.

Support for Photoshop-based batching *

Neat Image is integrated with Photoshop’s batch processing. Once you have recorded Neat Image into a Photoshop action, you can use that action in Photoshop’s batch processing to automatically process many images.

Instant visual feedback

Easy preview for any selected image area

Neat Image provides instant feedback of filtering results so you can achieve just the appearance you need. When adjusting the filter settings, you can immediately see the preview results in any area if the selected image or in the whole visible part of the image. You can manually select any area or just move across the image and zoom in to specific parts to get a better feeling of how the filtered image will look like as compared with the original.

Channel and frequency component preview

Per-channel and per-frequency preview modes help to identify most noisy components that require special attention. You can adjust the filter settings corresponding to those components and immediately see the results.

NOTE:
* Some features are available only in certain editions of Neat Image. Please see the detailed feature map.

System Requirements

Mac

  • Intel Mac running MacOS 10.13.6 or newer
  • Apple Silicon Mac running MacOS 11.0 or newer
  • 4 GB RAM or more
  • One of supported host applications (see below)

Neat Image is also ready to maximize the potential of your new Apple M2 computers by using both new M2 CPUs and GPUs.

Note: The minimum version of macOS required for Metal GPU support is now 11.0. Supported GPUs on earlier versions of macOS (10.13.6 and above) can be used via OpenCL only.

Supported applications

  • Photoshop
    • 2023 / 2022 / 2021 / 2020 / 2019 / CC
    • CS6 / CS5.5 / CS5
  • Photoshop Elements
    • 2023 / 2022 / … / 2019 / 2018
    • 15 / 14 / 13 / 12
  • Corel PHOTO-PAINT
    2022 / 2021 / 2020 / 2019
  • PhotoLine 23 / 22 / .. / 16 / 15 (64-bit)
  • GraphicConverter X
    • v8+ (Intel 64-bit)
    • v11+ (Apple Silicon)
  • Affinity Photo 1.4.3+

Optional AMD GPU support

Optional AMD GPU support
  • System requirements
    • Intel-based Mac
    • MacOS 11.0 or newer (Metal) or
      MacOS 10.13.6 or newer (OpenCL)
  • Supported GPUs
    • FirePro D300 / D500 / D700
    • Radeon R9
      • M290 / M290X / M295X
      • M370X / M380 / M390 / M395 / M395X
    • Radeon Pro
      • 450 / 455 / 460
      • 555 / 560 / 570 / 575 / 580
      • 555X / 560X / 570X / 575X / 580X
      • Vega 16 / 20 / 48 / 56 / 64 / 64X
      • Vega II / Vega II Duo
      • 5300M / 5500M / 5600M
      • 5300 / 5500 XT / 5700 / 5700 XT
      • W5700 / W5700X / W5500 / W5500X
      • W6800X / W6800X Duo / W6900X
    • Some other models of AMD cards
      (please directly try the plug-in or contact support to verify)
Optional Apple GPU support
  • System requirements
    • Apple Silicon Mac
    • MacOS 11.0 or newer
    • Native Apple Silicon code execution context (i. e. when not run in Rosetta)
  • Supported GPUs
    • M1 / M1 Pro / M1 Max / M1 Ultra
    • M2

Windows

  • Windows 11 / 10 / 8 / 7; 64-bit
  • Intel x64 or AMD x64 series processor, single or multi-processor
  • 4 GB RAM or more
  • One of supported host applications (see below)

Supported applications

  • 64-bit versions of Photoshop:
    • 2023 / 2022 / 2021 / 2020 / 2019 / CC
    • CS6 / CS5.x / CS4
  • Photoshop Elements (64-bit)
    • 2023 / 2022 / … / 2019 / 2018
    • 15 / 14 / 13
  • Corel PaintShop Pro (64-bit)
    • 2023 / 2022 / 2021 / 2020 / 2019 / 2018
    • X9 / X8 / X7 / X6
  • Corel PHOTO-PAINT (64-bit)
    • 2022 / 2021 / 2020 / 2019 / 2018 / 2017
    • X8 / X7 / X6
  • Affinity Photo 1.5+
  • Serif PhotoPlus (64-bit) X8 / X7 / X6
  • PhotoLine (64-bit)

Optional GPU support

  • Optional GPU support
    • NVIDIA GPUs:
      • The latest NVIDIA video drivers supporting CUDA 8 or newer
      • Any CUDA-capable NVIDIA GPU with compute capability 3.5 or higher
        (refer to this page for more details)
    • AMD GPUs:
      • The latest Adrenalin driver
      • Radeon HD 7790
      • Radeon R7 260 / 260X / 360
      • Radeon R9
        • 285 / 285X / 290 / 290X / 295X2
        • 380 / 380X / 390 / 390X
        • Fury, Nano, Fury X
      • Radeon RX
        • 460 / 470 / 480
        • 540 / 540X / 550 / 550X
        • 560 / 570 / 580
        • Vega 56 / Vega 64
        • 5300M / 5500 / 5500M
        • 5600 / 5600M / 5600 XT
        • 5700 / 5700M / 5700 XT
        • 6600 / 6600 XT
        • 6700 XT / 6800 / 6800 XT / 6900 XT
      • Radeon Pro
        • Duo
        • WX 2100 / 3100 / 4100 / 5100 / 7100 / 9100
      • Radeon Vega Frontier Edition
      • Radeon VII
      • Another AMD GPU based on one of the following chip series:
        Bonaire, Hawaii, Tonga, Fiji, Ellesmere, Baffin, gfx804, gfx900, gfx901, gfx906, gfx907, gfx1010, gfx1012, gfx1030, gfx1031, gfx1032

Mac (Standalone)

  • Intel Mac running MacOS 10.13.6 or newer
  • Apple Silicon Mac running MacOS 11.0 or newer
  • 4 GB RAM or more
  • Display resolution of 1280×800 or higher
Optional AMD GPU support
  • System requirements
    • Intel-based Mac
    • MacOS 11.0 or newer (Metal) or
      MacOS 10.13.6 or newer (OpenCL)
  • Supported GPUs
    • FirePro D300 / D500 / D700
    • Radeon R9
      • M290 / M290X / M295X
      • M370X / M380 / M390 / M395 / M395X
    • Radeon Pro
      • 450 / 455 / 460
      • 555 / 560 / 570 / 575 / 580
      • 555X / 560X / 570X / 575X / 580X
      • Vega 16 / 20 / 48 / 56 / 64 / 64X
      • Vega II / Vega II Duo
      • 5300M / 5500M / 5600M
      • 5300 / 5500 XT / 5700 / 5700 XT
      • W5700 / W5700X / W5500 / W5500X
      • W6800X / W6800X Duo / W6900X
    • Some other models of AMD cards
      (please directly try the plug-in or contact support to verify)
Optional Apple GPU support
  • System requirements
    • Apple Silicon Mac
    • MacOS 11.0 or newer
    • Native Apple Silicon code execution context (i. e. when not run in Rosetta)
  • Supported GPUs
    • M1 / M1 Pro / M1 Max / M1 Ultra
    • M2

Windows (Standalone)

  • Windows 11 / 10 / 8 / 7; 64-bit
  • Intel x64 or AMD x64 series processor; single or multi-processor
  • 4 GB RAM or more
  • Display resolution of 1280×800 or higher
Optional GPU support
  • NVIDIA GPUs:
    • The latest NVIDIA video drivers supporting CUDA 8 or newer
    • Any CUDA-capable NVIDIA GPU with compute capability 3.5 or higher
      (refer to this page for more details)
  • AMD GPUs:
    • The latest Adrenalin driver
    • Radeon HD 7790
    • Radeon R7 260 / 260X / 360
    • Radeon R9
      • 285 / 285X / 290 / 290X / 295X2
      • 380 / 380X / 390 / 390X
      • Fury, Nano, Fury X
    • Radeon RX
      • 460 / 470 / 480
      • 540 / 540X / 550 / 550X
      • 560 / 570 / 580
      • Vega 56 / Vega 64
      • 5300M / 5500 / 5500M
      • 5600 / 5600M / 5600 XT
      • 5700 / 5700M / 5700 XT
      • 6600 / 6600 XT
      • 6700 XT / 6800 / 6800 XT / 6900 XT
    • Radeon Pro
      • Duo
      • WX 2100 / 3100 / 4100 / 5100 / 7100 / 9100
    • Radeon Vega Frontier Edition
    • Radeon VII
    • Another AMD GPU based on one of the following chip series:
      Bonaire, Hawaii, Tonga, Fiji, Ellesmere, Baffin, gfx804, gfx900, gfx901, gfx906, gfx907, gfx1010, gfx1012, gfx1030, gfx1031, gfx1032

Linux (Standalone)

  • A compatible version of Linux:
    • CentOS/RedHat 7+
    • Fedora 21+
    • Manjaro 15+
    • Debian 9+
    • Ubuntu 16+
    • Linux Mint 17+
    • MX Linux 16+
    • OpenSUSE 42.2+

    Note: some of these versions may require installing additional packages

  • Intel x64 or AMD x64 series processor; single or multi-processor
  • 4 GB RAM or more
  • Display resolution of 1280×800 or higher
Optional GPU support
  • NVIDIA GPUs:
    • The latest NVIDIA proprietary video drivers supporting CUDA 8 or newer
    • Any CUDA-capable NVIDIA GPU with compute capability 3.5 or higher
      (refer to this page for more details)
  • AMD GPUs:
    • The latest version of AMDGPU-PRO or AMD ROCm driver
    • Radeon HD 7790
    • Radeon R7 260 / 260X / 360
    • Radeon R9
      • 285 / 285X / 290 / 290X / 295X2
      • 380 / 380X / 390 / 390X
      • Fury, Nano, Fury X
    • Radeon RX
      • 460 / 470 / 480
      • 540 / 540X / 550 / 550X
      • 560 / 570 / 580
      • Vega 56 / Vega 64
      • 5300M / 5500 / 5500M
      • 5600 / 5600M / 5600 XT
      • 5700 / 5700M / 5700 XT
      • 6600 / 6600 XT
      • 6700 XT / 6800 / 6800 XT / 6900 XT
    • Radeon Pro
      • Duo
      • WX 2100 / 3100 / 4100 / 5100 / 7100 / 9100
    • Radeon Vega Frontier Edition
    • Radeon VII
    • Another AMD GPU based on one of the following chip series:
      Bonaire, Hawaii, Tonga, Fiji, Ellesmere, Baffin, gfx803, gfx804, gfx900, gfx906, gfx1010, gfx1012, gfx1030, gfx1031, gfx1032

 

Neat Image 9.1 update

New versions of Photoshop and other host applications, new hardware, new Neat Image update.

This version of Neat Image is filled with support for both newest hardware and versions of host applications.

Several image editing applications have also come up with new versions of their software and our team has made sure that you can use Neat Image 9 plug-in with all of them. The version 9.1 has added support for the following versions of host applications:

  • Adobe Photoshop 2023 (version 24.0) (Windows, macOS)
  • Adobe Photoshop Elements 2023 (Windows, macOS)
  • Corel PHOTO-PAINT 2022 (Windows, macOS)
  • Corel PaintShop Pro 2023 (Windows)
  • PhotoLine 23 (Windows, macOS)
  • Graphic Converter 11.5.4 working in native Apple Silicon M1 mode (macOS)

This update also adds support for the new NVIDIA Ada Lovelace GPUs on Windows and Linux:
GeForce RTX 40-Series (4090 / 4080 / etc.)

and for three new AMD GPU models on MacOS:

  • AMD Radeon RX 6600 / RX 6600 XT
  • AMD Radeon 6900 XTXH

Neat Image is also ready to maximize the potential of your new Apple M2 computers by using both new M2 CPUs and GPUs.

Note: The minimum version of macOS required for Metal GPU support is now 11.0. Supported GPUs on earlier versions of macOS (10.13.6 and above) can be used via OpenCL only.

Many new profile sets have been added to the Profile Library as well to make denoising even quicker.

 

New in Version 9

Release Notes

Neat Image 9 is the upgrade that gets the denoiser improved in all dimensions. Denoising, speed, compatibility, hardware support, ease of use and other aspects have been worked through to get your images to look better with ease. Working holistically on all of Neat Image tools has ensured every image can be at its best after applying new Neat Image.

Better denoising results

As noise profiling is the key to great noise reduction, the existing profiling tools have been improved and new ones joined in the pack. Now you can adjust noise characteristics with a precision that has never been available before. Profile Check mode will help you and the filter to distinguish between noise and details and, as a result, accurately remove all of the unwanted noise.

Noise profile is always going to make or break the noise reduction result, but what can one do when there is no large uniform area present in a picture and another shot can’t be used for noise analysis? The new adjustable Generic Profile will be able to save the day then. It’s an easy-to-use tool with a lot of noise reduction power in it.

New controls in Neat Image’s Sharpening tool are also going to work hard to help you to emphasize every important detail that’s too dear to be lost. You will get the extra option to refine sharpening settings and get that extra kick in bringing even more juice into the picture. Large resolution photos will get the lift they need to express every pixel they have.

Greater speed

As compared with the previous major version, Neat Image 9 shows a speed increase in both CPU and GPU-based processing. CPU-only mode is now performing up to 50% faster, GPU acceleration has more modest, but nevertheless welcomed 10% speed increase.

Mac users will be even more pleased with the performance of Neat Image 9 as this is the first version that natively supports M1 Apple Silicon. That includes all current models:  M1, M1 Pro and M1 Max. This native support ensures the best possible speed when working on your new computer. Importantly, M1 chips are supported both in CPU and GPU modes, which makes processing even faster.

Easier to use

Variants of Filtration is a feature that has set the stage for new and easier ways of cleaning up your photos. Now this tool will help you not only to adjust filter settings to perfection, but also work on noise profiles. You can create up to four different variants and tweak them separately, together, halfway together and then separately again, or any way you want. Just choose the one your eyes love the most.

To make the learning curve easier we have introduced illustrations and comments in the Profile Check to and Filter Tuning Assist tools. These illustrations will tell you what to aim for while using those two special tuning modes.

Those who are just starting to use Neat Image or someone who is too busy for tuning the filter will benefit from our pre-built filter presets. They will give you great results in no time. The beauty of these presets is they don’t stop you from playing and adjusting the denoiser. You are free to choose any path you want to.

More changes

Of course, there is much more to Neat Image 9. For a better denoising experience, UI has become more intuitive and interactive. Preview performance has been optimized. Even the installer has been reworked!



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