Which came first, Pre-Sharpen or Noise Reduction?

What is the best initial Nik workflow order?

I go back and forth when working with the Google Nik plugins and my workflow in Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom. Should I use the pre-sharpener first, as the Google Nik Workflow suggests, or should I use DFine noise reduction first, as others and myself believe to make more sense? Does it make any difference?

It seems to me that if there is noise present in an image and you use the pre-sharpener first, you'll be sharpening the noise, which seems like it would then be more difficult to apply the noise reduction. It seems like the blurring would have to be greater.

Nik's workflow doesn't really offer any reasoning for applying the pre-sharpener first, but it makes sense to me that it would be easier to detect where to sharpen before any noise reduction basically blurred the image to a small extent.

I decided to try both approaches to see if I could find any differences.

Experimenting

I used one of my photos from Bryce Canyon National Park that has some shadows that likely need a touch of noise reduction. The shot was taken at sunset where most of the hoo doo area was in shadow but, as you can see, the distance is still in sunlight. I really wanted to sharpen this image to add some more detail.

I opened this image in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) to import it in to Photoshop as a smart object. I did not apply any noise reduction or sharpening in ACR. By opening it as a smart object I was able to use the same image and to modify the Nik processing.

You should be able to click on these images to get the full size version. Note that they are JPEGs so there is additional processing beyond what I could see in Photoshop.

Bryce Canyon NP - Noise Reduction followed by Pre-Sharpener

Bryce Canyon NP - Pre-Sharpener followed by Noise Reduction

In the first image I applied noise reduction first and then the pre-sharpening. In the second image I applied the pre-sharpener first, followed by the noise reduction. I didn't do any other processing - I wanted to see what the difference is between the two approaches, if any. I used the Nik DFine noise reduction at it's default settings in both cases.

For the pre-sharpener, I set the Sharpen Areas -  Sharpen Lines balance towards Sharpen Lines, with the slider basically above the "N" in the word "Normal" below the slider. Note that when you use the Nik plugins without closing Photoshop in between uses, they open with the previous settings applied. When I switched the order (by deleting the filters in Photoshop), the pre-sharpener opened up with exactly the same setting applied. Everything else was set to the default settings.

Conclusion

If you download both of these images and open each one in a preview panel (I don't know how to do this on a Mac), you can set both preview panels the same by clicking Windows Key + [Left / Right] Arrow Key to get them side by side on your monitor. Then click the Actual Size button on both windows to set the images to 100% and to display the same area of the image.

In my opinion, there is not a lot of difference. It looks to me like there is pretty much identical sharpness in the details, which is good. The little difference that I see is that there are some red pixels creating a color noise artifact in the shadows that appear more defined and sharper in the version where pre-sharpening was applied first. In other words, from this experiment on this image, it appears as though it is (barely) better to do the noise reduction first.

Following the NIK Post Processing Workflow

Saguaro National Park

Saguaro National Park Sunrise

I was able to get out to Saguaro National Park last weekend, which I've already posted about to some extent (actually, that post was more about the Tether Tools Case Air). I only got about 20 captures, and processed 5 of them that I've uploaded to my SmugMug site.

I have been working on a free online document where I put my post-processing notes, and as I work on things I update the document. When processing the Saguaro National Park photographs, I decided to once again try the Nik collection of Adobe plugins (now free from Google). I had kind of stopped using them for a while and have mainly been doing post in Lightroom.

My Modified Nik Collection Workflow

In my post-processing notes, I have a Workflow section in which I list a few different post-processing workflows including the Nik Collection Workflow from their online documentation. I basically copied it but I swap a couple of their steps (I tend to do the noise reduction before the pre-sharpener).

I decided to use the Nik plugins on the Saguaro National Park shots just to see how they compared to my Lightroom processing (note: you can use the plugins in Lightroom too). I have to say I was pretty pleased with the results!

In addition to the Nik workflow, I added the Elia Locardi High Pass Sharpening technique that I also outline in my document. While doing so, I took the time to learn and document how to create a Photoshop Action for creating a new High Pass Sharpening layer. I really like how this sharpening works.

I also added a layer for my watermark but that's not too difficult. I was hoping to create an action for that too but I don't see how. You apparently can't import an image using the file system directly into a layer.

The Workflow in Action

Saguaro National Park Sunrise - SOOC

I used Lightroom to browse the RAW files after importing them. I still don't find that I use Adobe Bridge for much; I've only used Bridge when I want to open multiple RAW files in ACR (Adobe Camera Raw) at the same time. Here's the SOOC (Straight Out Of Camera) version of the image above:

As you can see, it's pretty dark! Let's get to work on it to see if it's of any value...

In Lightroom, I right-clicked on the image and selected "Open as object...". By opening it as an object in Photoshop you can make adjustments with ACR or Nik plugins which get saved and allow you to re-edit them. The alternative is to open the image as a background layer and when you apply a Nik plugin and save it, you won't be able to re-open that plugin with the settings restored.

One other note - it is sometimes easier to do any cropping and straightening in Lightroom before you go to Photoshop. Any such edits will be preserved when you open the image in Photoshop.

Exposure First (in ACR)

I made my overall exposure adjustments in ACR (again, following my Exposure notes in my document) by double clicking on the Smart Object (which opens ACR).

Then I followed my modified Nik workflow:

• Dfine for noise reduction .
• Raw Presharpener. 
• I did apply a bit of additional overall brightening to the foreground as well as some minor dodging and burning using Viveza.
• In Color Efex Pro I used the Detail Enhancer, Pro Contrast, and Vignette: Lens filters, adjusting each to my taste.

After those steps, I used my High Pass Sharpening action to add a new layer with sharpening and adjusted the opacity down a bit.

Finally, I added another layer for my logo, copied and pasted my logo from another PSD, resized and re-positioned it.

This is actually a fairly quick process, although not one that may lend itself to duplicating directly from one image to another (which I rarely do). In fact, I was so pleased with the results I went back and processed some other photos I hadn't touched before and ended up being pleased with them as well, such as this one from Picacho Peak State Park in Arizona:

Picacho Peak Sunset on Cholla