In the Open device noise profile dialog, navigate to the folder where the sample device noise profile has been unzipped and double click on the SampleProfile.dnp file.
Now the sample device noise profile is opened and Neat Image is almost ready to filter the sample image. Usually, you would adjust the filter settings at this stage. To make things easier for the first run of Neat Image, we have prepared a sample preset file that stores good filter settings suitable for the sample image.
Stage 3. Open the sample filter preset
1. 2. 3. Switch to the Noise Filter Settings tab: Click (pink disk) in the Filter Preset box on the right panel;
In the Open filter preset dialog, navigate to the folder where the sample filter preset has been unzipped and double click on the SamplePreset.nfp file.
Now the sample filter preset is opened and the filter settings are adjusted to process the sample image.
Stage 4. Apply the filter
1. 2. Switch to the Output Image tab: Click on the toolbar and wait until the progress indicator disappears.
Processing may take a few seconds. Then the filtered output image is displayed. You can click the output image to compare it with the input image. Notice that the noise especially in the sky area has been significantly reduced while the image details have been preserved. Please note that the sample noise profile and sample filter preset supplied with the test-kit are suitable only for images taken with that particular digital camera working in the same or similar mode. Neat Image can perform similar noise reduction on images captured or acquired by any other camera or scanner working in any mode. To be able to do that Neat Image needs device noise profiles that describe the noise characteristics of those devices. With Neat Image you can build these profiles yourself. The software can completely automatically build a profile given an input image. Also, you can find pre-built device noise profiles for many digital cameras and scanners in the Profiles section of Neat Image web page: http://www.neatimage.com/profiles.html The next sections Filtration process details, page 9, and Device noise profiles, page 21, contain detailed descriptions of the filtration and profiling processes. There are also several examples of profiling and filtration in the examples section of Neat Image web page: http://www.neatimage.com/examples.html. 8
4. Filtration process details
Neat Image can be used to filter a single image or multiple images at the same time. This section contains a detailed description of the filtration process involving a single image. Processing multiple images is explained in the Queued processing section, page 41.

In the Save filter preset as dialog box, specify the name of the file to save the preset. The filter presets are stored in *.nfp files. Saved filter preset includes the noise filter and sharpening settings. By re-opening a preset, you can reproduce exactly the same filter settings later on. Also, you can exchange filter presets with other users of Neat Image. Together, a device noise profile and a filter preset can be used to precisely reproduce the filtration results.
To manually load a previously saved filter preset

Filter Preset

(the Load filter preset button, pink disk) in the Filter Preset box or select the Filter | Load menu item. In the Open filter preset dialog box, specify the name of the filter preset to be
opened. or Select a preset using the popup menu: click on the button on the side of the preset name shown in
User Guide the top part of the Filter Preset box, and select a preset from the popup menu.
There are several pre-written filter presets in the PRESETS subfolder of installed Neat Image application. Please explore these presets to see what combinations and values of the noise and sharpening filters settings can be used to solve typical tasks (names of the presets explain these tasks).
To automatically load a filter preset that matches the noise profile or input image (preset matching)
You may want to associate different filter presets with different noise profiles that you use. Neat Image can automatically load an associated filter preset every time you load a noise profile from the hard drive (either when you load a profile manually or using Profile Matcher). To enable profile matching and to associate presets with profiles see the following options that tell Neat Image how to do preset matching: Default filter preset, page 50 (Auto match preset should be selected to enable preset matching), and Preset Matching, page 52.
4.4. Stage IV. Apply filter to the input image
Use the Output Image tab in the Filtration Job Editor:
1. Select output image type
Select the output image type from the list in the Filter Output box (24-bit RGB/48-bit RGB; 8-bit/16-bit Grayscale). The output image type can be made different from the input image type. In this case, the input image will be internally converted during processing.

2. Apply the filtration

Click (the Apply button) on the toolbar or select the Filter | Apply menu item. Processing may take some time (from seconds to minutes, depending on the speed of your computer's processor and size of the image). During this time, you can minimize the Filtration Job Editor window.

5.2. Building a profile for a device mode (standard profiling procedure)
In this subsection, you will find out how to build a noise profile for an image produced in a certain shooting or scanning mode. When building a profile, you will mostly work with the Device Noise Profile tab in the Filtration Job Editor:
It is assumed that some input image is opened in the Filtration Job Editor. Building a new noise profile generally consists of three stages: Stage I. Building a profile; Stage II. Documenting the profile; Stage III. Saving the profile. The Stage I, building a profile, can be done with the use of a regular image (for example, the image that you want to denoise in Neat Image or any other normal image) or with the use of the Calibration Target. These two cases are described as two alternative versions of the Stage I: Stage I. Case of building a profile using a regular image Stage I. Case of building a profile using the Calibration Target You may want to follow the case of building a noise profile using a regular image if you only need a single-use profile to process one input image. In this case, the input image (or an alternative regular image from the same series that has to be produced by the same device working in the same mode) should contain enough uniform featureless areas for noise analysis.
To install a profile set: unzip the downloaded profile archive to the folder specified in Neat Image Options: go to menu Tools | Options | Folders | Profile folder. 1999-2008 Neat Image team, ABSoft. All rights reserved.
A uniform area (with minor variation in all color channels of the image) may be overcast sky, clear sky (without clouds and birds), or any other part of an image, where there are no visually perceptible details (except the noise). Neat Image needs uniform featureless areas of around 128x128 pixels (minimum is 32x32 pixels). If the input image does not contain such areas and you have no suitable alternative regular image that contains such areas, you can prepare a special test image and follow the case of building a noise profile using the Calibration Target (page 28). That is also recommended if you want to prepare a reusable noise profile for a certain mode of your camera or scanner.

The whole image will be automatically analyzed by Neat Image and some of the equalizer sliders will receive the measured status (see page 27 for explanation of different status marking). The values of unmeasured sliders will be then automatically interpolated by the Auto Complete function and will receive the manual status. You may want to inspect the equalizer values after using auto fine-tuning. In most cases, there is no need to do any additional slider adjustments. If you feel this is necessary (for example if some slider values have red shading the inaccurate status, or the interpolated values exceed the normal range of possible values), please follow the guidelines of the manual fine-tuning subsection below. Otherwise please proceed to Stage II. Documenting the noise profile, page 31. Case of manual fine-tuning Manual fine-tuning involves analyzing several flat featureless image areas. You have to manually find and analyze them one after another by following the steps below: 1) Find and select a uniform featureless image area Scroll, pan, zoom the image in the viewer in the Device Noise Profile tab to find a uniform image area. See examples of uniform image areas in page 57.
Use Image Viewer Adjustments to find a uniform area in very dark or very bright image areas. Use the mouse to select a uniform image area: press the left mouse button, drag the mouse and then release the button. The size of a selected area should be from 16x16 to 256x256 pixels. The selection frame will change its thickness according to the selection size. Also, when you are selecting an image area, the 4-Dec-08
selection status in the bottom of the Fine-Tuning Analyzer box is dynamically indicating which 1 frequency components are contained in the selected area and would be analyzed: high, high+mid, high+mid+low, high+mid+low+very low freqs. Size of an area, pixels 128x128 - 256x256 64x64 - 128x128 32x32 64x64 16x16 32x32 Which frequency components would be analyzed High, medium, low and very low High, medium and low High and medium High Rating Best Good Ok Poor

User Guide Case of slide scanner
Use the displayed or printed Calibration Target to prepare a test scan for building a device noise profile for your film scanner: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Set the camera to a certain shooting mode (film type, exposure, etc.) you want to build a profile for; Important: set the focusing system on infinity or in macro mode to get a slightly-out-of-focus image of the target; Make sure the Calibration Target fills the whole frame and make a shot; Develop the slide and put it into the scanner; Set the scanner to a certain scanning mode (resolution, light level, etc.) that you want to build a profile for and scan the slide; Open the resulting scan in Neat Image (see below).
Step 3. Opening the image
To open the resulting shot or scan in Neat Image: Click (the Open test image button) on the toolbar (or select the File | Open menu item) and select the shot (scan) of the Calibration Target. The image will only replace the input image in the Device Noise Profile tab for the purpose of building a device noise profile.
or Paste the shot (scan) of the Calibration Target from the Windows clipboard or drag and drop it from another application to the image viewer in the Device Noise Profile tab.
Step 4. Selecting a working color space (Advanced mode only)
The input images processed in Neat Image are supposed to be in one or more flavors of RGB color space, like AdobeRGB, sRGB, etc. Most images (irrespective of their file format) produced by consumer digital cameras use the sRGB color space; some prosumer and professional cameras can use the AdobeRGB color space as well. If an input image is in some flavor of RGB color space then Neat Image produces the output image in exactly the same flavor of RGB color space. However, to efficiently apply noise reduction Neat Image temporarily converts the image to another color space called working color space. The working color space is an internal parameter of Neat Image noise reduction algorithm. The input image is temporarily converted to selected working color space for processing and then converted back to the original color space to produce the output image. The input and output images are kept in the same flavor of RGB color space and the conversion itself is very accurate so you do not have to worry about this internal color space conversion. We recommend using the YCrCb working color space to process color images in Neat Image. Normally, the YCrCb (default) working color space is best for color photographic images, the YCrCb Symmetric color space for grayscale (halftone) images converted to RGB format. The RGB color space may also be useful for special purposes, for example, to filter only one color channel (R, G or B) of the image.

Please note that copy & pasting an image does not copy the EXIF information which may be important for profiling purposes, especially in the case of digital camera profiles. In cases when the EXIF information is significant, consider using manual opening an image file or drag-n-dropping it instead of copy & pasting. 1999-2008 Neat Image team, ABSoft. All rights reserved.
In Advanced mode, use the Working color space list in the Device Noise Profile box to select required working color space. In Standard mode, only the YCrCb color space is available. The subsequent noise analysis will be done in selected working color space. Neat Image will try to automatically redo the analysis if you change the working color space later on.
Step 5. Analyzing image noise
With the shot or scan of the Calibration Target, Neat Image can build a device noise profile completely automatically. Click (the Auto Profile with Calibration Target button) on the toolbar, or select the Profile | Auto Profile with Calibration Target menu item, or press F3.
After the analysis is completed, proceed to the Stage II below.
5.2.3. Stage II. Documenting the noise profile
At this point of building the noise profile for your camera or scanner, the noise analysis is done and all important noise characteristics are gathered in the profile. However, you may still have to manually document the profile if Neat Image has not done this automatically. With most images from digital cameras, Neat Image is able to automatically extract the crucial information about camera mode from the EXIF data fields of the analyzed image and put this information into the Device name and Device mode fields of the profile. If Neat Image has not automatically placed any information to the Device name and Device mode fields after noise analysis, fill out these fields manually. Use the Device name and Device mode fields on the Device Noise Profile panel. Here, you can specify the model of the image acquisition device, like "Olympus C5050Z", and describe the device mode. Specify parameters used to capture the image. For example, this can be something like the data in the text box on the right. About the Device name and Device mode notes It is highly recommended to specify these details to keep record of devices, device modes, and corresponding device noise profiles that you use. The noise characteristics of any two devices can be extremely different. Even a single device in different modes can produce significantly different noise. Therefore, it is always better to use separate noise profiles for different devices and device modes to avoid inaccurate filtration and artifacts. Commenting on the device name and device mode parameters helps you keep track of them when you do manual profile matching, i.e., when you manually select a suitable profile to process an image. Automatic profile matching available in Neat Image uses the EXIF data of the image files, not the Device name and Device mode fields, so filling out these fields may not be necessary for automatic profile matching. However, filling out these fields is highly advisable both for the clarity purposes and for the cases of EXIF-less input images (in such cases, you have to manually select a suitable profile based on the Device name and Device mode fields). Please see the Preparing a profile set for different device modes section, page 34, to learn more about camera and scanner parameters that may need to be documented in the Device mode field. ISO level: 200 Compression: 5 bits/pixel Exposure time: 1/80s White balance: Default

An example of such a description is below:
Olympus C5050Z noise profiles by John Smith, December 4, 2008 A set of profiles for Olympus C5050Z TIFF and JPEG files. The profiles were built using shots of the Calibration Target for the following file formats and image sizes: TIFF: 2048x1536 / 2288x1712 / 2560x1696 / 2560x1920 JPEG HQ / SHQ: 2560x1696 / 2560x1920
For each file format and image size above, shots with different ISO rates (100, 200 and 400) were made and used to build profiles. Default camera settings were used for Sharpness, Contrast, and Saturation. In-camera noise reduction was switched off. The white balance was set to daylight. No post processing was applied; the calibration target shots directly from the camera were opened in Neat Image to build profiles.
Such kind of summary would help you figure out any set of profiles you prepared as well as let other people understand your results if you decided to share your profiles.
5.4. Using noise profiles
When you have a set of profiles for your camera or scanner, you can directly use these profiles to process images in Neat Image. Usually there is only one profile that is most suitable to process a given input image. Therefore it is very important to select the right profile, which would provide good match between profile and image. All profiles in a set have been built for different device modes of the imaging device. To make a perfect match between a profile and image, the device mode of a profile should be the same or very close to the device mode used to capture the image. There are two ways to select a device noise profile that matches the input image: To automatically select the most suitable profile from a pre-built set of profiles using the automatic Profile Matcher (see page 11 for details); To manually select the most suitable profile from a pre-built set of profiles using their device mode comments (see page 11 for details). When you select and open a profile in either way, Neat Image shows the degree of match between the profile and input image. This degree is shown by the Profile match indicator in the bottom of the Filtration Job Editor window. The match degree is calculated on the basis of the image and profile metadata (the EXIF data fields). If the profiles device mode is exactly the same as device mode used to capture the image then the match is 100%. There is always 100% match between an image and profile built using this very image. If the device modes of profile and image are very close then the match degree is close to 100%. The more different the device modes of profile and image are, the smaller the match degree is. Use the match degree as an indication of match accuracy. If the match degree is low then it is likely that building a new profile (using the current image or the Calibration Target shot in current device mode) would produce better noise reduction results. Obviously it is preferable to build a new noise profile for each new image, because such a profile would perfectly match the noise of that image. Nevertheless, any noise profile can, with some degree of accuracy, be used to process other images captured by the same device working in the same or similar mode. This is less accurate than building a profile for each image but saves time because building a new profile usually takes more time than re-using a pre-built one. This is especially important if one profile is re-used many times, for example to process a series of images produced in one device mode. When using pre-built profiles, you may also want to pay attention to the Profile quality indicator in the bottom of the Filtration Job Editor window. A properly-built and fine-tuned profile will show a high value in this indicator. If the profile quality is high (for example, higher than 75%) then you can be sure that the noise profile itself is accurate. Both Profile quality and match indicators have to show high values for the noise reduction with this profile to be accurate.

The Profile Viewer provides detailed information about the currently used noise profile. The Profile Viewer provides the following details:

Overall profile quality

this is an estimation of the overall quality of the noise analysis represented by this profile. The higher this value the better this profile seems to be. A quality profile is necessary for quality noise reduction. this is an optional noise sample (a crop from the image used to build this profile). The noise sample helps you visually evaluate the noise described by this profile. Also, you can easily see whether any details are present in this area, which makes the profile less accurate (only flat featureless areas without any details should be used for profiling).

Noise sample

this indicator tells whether there is any clipping in the analyzed image area. Clipping occurs when the sample contains pixels that are very close to or in fact are entirely white (or entirely black). Clipping reduces the overall profile quality.
Uniformity these values show how uniform the noise sample is in all color channels. The uniformity is low when any details are present in the area. Low uniformity reduces the overall profile quality. Fine-tuning

Clipping

this indicator tells how well this profile is fine-tuned. Fine-tuning is a part of profiling process (both automatic and manual) and the more complete and accurate the
Neat Image /Win fine-tuning the higher the overall profiling quality. If you work with Neat Image in Advanced mode then you can see that the more green shadings are present in the noise profile equalizer the higher the overall profile quality. You can improve the profile quality by additional fine-tuning.
Noise levels these figures show the actual noise levels measured by the analyzers during profiling. There are the overall noise level and noise levels corresponding to channel and frequency image components. These figures are a good indication of how noisy an image source is. EXIF information this box contains the EXIF information associated with the image used to build
this profile. This information is used by Neat Image to find a profile that matches an input image.

6.5. Profile Converter

Device noise profiles built with previous versions of Neat Image can, with certain limitations, be used in the current version. Building new profiles directly with the current version is of course preferred (this may potentially provide a higher accuracy) but, if necessary, older profiles can be converted to the new format using the Profile Converter tool. The Profile Converter is a dedicated tool that can automatically convert several noise profiles built with Neat Image v2.1-3.1 and v4.x to the new format of Neat Image v5.x-v6.x. Only those profiles can be converted that contain embedded noise samples. Use the Profile Viewer, accessible via the Ctrl+I shortcut or the Profile | Profile Viewer menu item, to check whether a profile contains embedded noise sample.

To change device noise profile for selected job(s) in the queue
Select job(s) in the queue and click (blue disk) or use the Device noise profile popup menu in the Filtration Job box (or select the Job | Set Profile menu item) to assign a profile to all selected jobs. or (the Profile Matcher button) or select the Job | Match Profiles menu item to automatically Click assign matching profiles to selected jobs using the Profile Matcher.
To change filter preset for selected job(s) in the queue
Select job(s) in the queue and click (pink disk) or use the Filter preset popup menu in the Filtration Job box (or select the Job | Set Preset menu item) to assign a preset to all selected jobs.
7.4. Removing image filtration jobs
To remove existing image filtration job(s)
Select one or more filtration jobs in the queue that you want to remove and click Delete selected filtration job button) or select the Job | Delete menu item. (the
7.5. Queuing and holding image filtration jobs
An image filtration job in the queue is processed when it is ready (i.e., input image and noise profile are present) unless you specifically put it on hold. A job put on hold will not be processed until you explicitly queue it.
To queue image filtration job(s)
Select one or more filtration jobs in the list that you want to process and click Queue selected job(s) button) or select the Job | Queue menu item. (the
The selected job(s) will receive status queued and will be processed when their turn comes.
To put image filtration job(s) on hold
Select one or more filtration jobs in the queue that you want to put on hold and click (the Put selected job(s) on hold button) or select the Job | Hold menu item. The selected job(s) will receive status on hold and will not be processed.
7.6. Starting and stopping the filtration queue
You may want to completely stop (and then start again) the filtration queue. This can be done using the controls in the Filtration Queue box.

To stop the filtration queue
Click to stop processing jobs in the filtration queue.
To start the filtration queue
Click to start processing jobs in the filtration queue.
7.7. Saving output images
When a job is done in the filtration queue, you will most likely want to save the result. This can be done within the Filtration Job Editor where you can use the Filtration Queue window. (the Edit job button) to open it or directly from
To save output image of a filtration job
Click (the Save output image as button).
You can save output images of more than one job using this button. Select several completed jobs and click this button to save several output images at once.

8. Using plug-in

The plug-in version of the filter is only available in certain editions of Neat Image. Please see the Detailed feature map, page 62, for more details. Please follow the subsections below to learn how to install and use the plug-in to process images directly in your image editor.
8.1. Installing the plug-in into image editor
In most cases, the Neat Image plug-in is installed automatically to Adobe Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Corel/Jasc Paint Shop Pro and several other image editors. If for some reason the plug-in is not automatically installed, then you can install it manually using the guidelines below.
To manually install Neat Image plug-in to Photoshop / Photoshop Elements
Method 1 (traditional one): Copy the NeatImage.8bf file from the Neat Image installation folder (typically, C:\Program Files\Neat Image\) into the Plugins or Plug-ins subfolder inside the Photoshop / Photoshop Elements folder. Then re-start the image editor, and you will find the Neat Image plug-in in the Filter menu under the Neat Image submenu. Method 2 (an easier one, available in Photoshop 7.0 or newer; PS Elements 2 or newer): In Photoshop, go to the Edit menu, Preferences | Plug-ins and Scratch Disks and set Additional Plug-ins Directory to the Neat Image installation folder (typically, C:\Program Files\Neat Image\). Then re-start the image editor, and you will find the Neat Image plug-in in the Filter menu under the Neat Image submenu.

Take the maximum value (recommended)
The equalizer sets the sliders RGB values to the maximum of the last two analyses (aggressive filtration, maximum noise removal);

Take the minimum value

The equalizer sets the sliders RGB values to the minimum of the last two analyses (conservative filtration, minimum image changes);

Take the average value

The equalizer sets the sliders RGB values to the average of the last two analyses;

Take the last value

The equalizer sets the sliders RGB values to the current analysis.
Save noise sample in profile
Turn this option on to make Neat Image save a noise sample from the analyzed image area into device noise profile (a *.dnp file). This will increase the size of the *.dnp file but will also improve the compatibility with the future versions of the software (Neat Image will be able to re-build the profile using the saved noise sample).
Show warnings about selected image area
Turn this option on to let Neat Image display warnings about selected image area during profiling. For example, Neat Image may warn about clipping or non-uniformity detected in the selected image area.

9.4. Matching options

9.4.1. Profile Matching
Profile matching options allows adjusting the way Neat Image is doing matching of noise profiles to input image.
Look for noise profiles in the following folder:
If this option is selected then Neat Image will look for matching noise profiles in the folder which you can specify below. This should be the topmost folder of all the subfolders with noise profiles to be checked during automatic matching. By default, the PROFILES subfolder of Neat Image installation folder is used.
Look for noise profiles in folders of input images
If this option is selected then Neat Image will look for matching profiles in the folders of the input images. If you put desired noise profile to a folder with input images and select this option then Neat Image will select this profile for every image from that folder. If there are several profiles in such a folder then the best matching will be selected for every input image. 4-Dec-08
Matching parameters priorities
To automatically match profiles for the input image, Neat Image compares the device parameters of the input image and candidate profiles selected from folder specified by the above options. Different parameters usually have to be matched with different priority. Using Matching parameters priorities controls, you can select the priorities of such parameters as Input device, ISO rate, Compression, Resolution, Sharpness, Exposure:

Match High Low Ignore

the parameter should match exactly; it is highly important that the parameter is very close or matches exactly; it is preferable that the parameter is close or matches exactly; the parameter is not important at all.

If you use the plug-in version of Neat Image filter then the partial filtration is even easier: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Open the input image in your image editor; Copy the input image in a new layer on top of the original image; Apply Neat Image noise reduction to the top layer; Adjust the transparency of the top layer so that noisy areas look fine; Select and delete the areas of the top layer where filtration is not necessary or excessive (you may want to use the eraser tool with adjustable transparency and shape).
This is a common problem of hi-color displays. If the display does not have enough colors then the image can have some bands of the same colors. Dithering is usually used to mask this problem on such displays. An original image usually contains some noise, which acts like dithering. When Neat Image removes this noise, the underlying problem of banding may come up again. A solution is to use a true color display or a better image viewer (in hi-color), which applies some dithering automatically. 1999-2008 Neat Image team, ABSoft. All rights reserved.

13. Information

13.1.Issues and bugs
We try to keep Neat Image as free of bugs as possible. Please report any bugs or issues (even those already reported before) you encounter while working with Neat Image. Use the online bug report form on the Neat Image web page: http://www.neatimage.com/brf.html. Your feedback will greatly help us to improve the software and provide you with even better versions of Neat Image.

13.2.Plans

The current version of Neat Image is the result of our ongoing research on noise filtration. We continue to work on the core noise reduction algorithms to improve the quality and speed of noise reduction. Please let us know if you have ideas that can make Neat Image better. Participate in the discussion on the Neat Image community forum, express your opinion, make suggestions, and ask questions. The more people that ask for a feature the more likely it is that it will be implemented.
13.3.Detailed feature map
Features Image processing 8 bits/channel (24-bit RGB, 8-bit Grayscale) 16 bits/channel (48-bit RGB, 16-bit Grayscale) Standalone version of the filter Queue / batch depth Command line support 24-bit RGB, 8-bit grayscale 24-bit RGB, TIFF: 8-bit grayscale single image, no layers, 48-bit RGB, no alpha channel, no mask 16-bit grayscale BMP: uncompressed, Win3x 24/32-bit RGB Windows clipboard 24/32-bit RGB Drag and drop (from Windows Explorer) Plug-in version of the filter File formats supported Photoshop actions and smart filters supported Preserving image EXIF data in processed files JPEG up to 2 +/+ +/

Neat Image 7

May 5, 2011 ABSoft introduces a new generation of its Neat Image noise reduction tools EINDHOVEN, NL, May 5 Neat Image team, ABSoft, is pleased to introduce the 7th generation of its noise reduction solution for digital photography that inherits and refines the highest quality and efficiency traditionally delivered by Neat Image. Renowned for its noise reduction quality, Neat Image is used by photographers all over the world as a tool that turns noisy photos and grainy scans into clean and neat digital images. In Neat Image 7, the existing family of noise reduction products for Windows and Mac OS is updated and extended with two new members: standalone versions of Neat Image for Linux and Mac OS. The new Neat Image harnesses the power of CUDA, providing up to x2.5-x7 acceleration over CPU-only systems. It is also able to involve all available CPUs and GPUs in computation for even faster processing. On top of that, multiple performance optimizations throughout the application increase speed of noise reduction in individual images as well as of batch processing. Years of ABSofts experience and feedback from users have resulted in numerous improvements in the graphical user interface of Neat Image 7. These include redesigned window layouts, better preview with multi-component viewer modes, improved profile equalizer and refreshed graphical elements throughout the application. Standalone versions have received new and improved batching facilities, task thumbnails, multi-image and single-image mode. Neat Image 7 also adds: Smart Profile to prepare more accurate noise profiles using a smart combination of two profiling methods; support for 32-bit per channel images for HDR workflows; many other improvements. Background Since the beginning of the digital imaging era, digital noise and digitized film grain have always been unwelcome parts of many digital photos and scans because of imperfect physical nature of the underlying light-capturing processes. While the hardware manufacturers have always been trying to improve these processes, Neat Image software is designed to work with the available output produced by the existing hardware: noisy high ISO digital photos and scans of grainy film. Neat Image greatly improves the visual quality of such digital images by reducing the objectionable noise and grain and at the same time preserving the true image details. Neat Image was initially introduced to the market in 2001 and quickly became the de facto standard in noise reduction for digital photography thanks to the quality of noise reduction delivered by the tool. The top quality noise reduction has been made possible by using the advanced noise reduction algorithms that rely on device noise profiles a reusable analysis of noise properties of an image acquisition device (digital camera, scanner, etc.). Knowing the noise properties of an imaging device, Neat Image can draw a more clear distinction between noise and details in images produced by the device and therefore better preserve the true details while suppressing the objectionable noise. Pricing and Availability Neat Image 7 is available as a standalone application for Windows, Mac OS and Linux, as a plug-in for Photoshop (Windows, Mac OS) and as a plug-in for Aperture (Mac OS). 32-bit and 64-bit builds of each product are available. Intel- and PowerPC-based Macs are supported. All versions of Neat Image come in two editions: Home (US$39.90) and Pro (US$69.90 / 79.90). The Home editions support 8-bit images and limited batching, the Pro editions support 8/16/32-bit images and unlimited batching. Demo versions of all products are available. Bundles of two or more versions of Neat Image as well as multi-user licenses are available with volume discounts. Upgrading from older versions Licensed users of older versions of Neat Image can upgrade to the latest Neat Image 7 using a special upgrade offer. For more information please visit http://www.neatimage.com