I have a couple of helpful tools that I would like to share with you. The first one is called Neat Image and you can find it at //www.neatimage.com. It is excellent for removing noise in an image. It is a stand alone program and it has many options for fine tuning the image. It appears a little complicated but it shouldn't take long to get the hang of it. There are pretty good instructions that come with it. I'm still testing out the trial version and I have been very impressed so far. The one drawback, at least on my 400mhz machine, is that it can take several minutes to apply the final process to the image. It is well worth it though. The next tool is Panorama Tools and is for correcting barrel and pincushion distortion and it can be found at //www.dpreview.com/learn/Image_Techniques/Barrel_Distortion_Correction_01.htm. This is a free plug-in filter for Photoshop, and maybe other editing software as well. It has a pretty technical looking interface but it does an excellent job for correcting distortion, much better then can be achieved with Photoshop alone.
NeatImage is specifically referenced as OK in the PROPOSED RULES which have been circulating for comment, and I believe it is considered a "Photoshop Equivalent" for the Despeckle filter if used only for noise removal.
I'd assume PanoramaTools is illegal now; as far as I know nothing which "moves" or changes individual pixels will be legal under the new rules either, but you are free to suggest it if you can write a workable rule.
Originally posted by magnetic9999: i believe my hazy recollection is that it's ok.
As long as it's applied to the entire image, its effectively just a despeckle/noise removal filter, which should be okay... unless I'm told otherwise that is :o)
