Apple iTunes App Review: NoiseBlaster

One of my big complains about the Apple 3G iPhone is the quality of the built in 2MP camera. Some people might say that it is a cellphone and the camera doesn’t really matter, but when it comes comparing the camera of the Apple 3G iPhone to that of other cellphone manufacturers’ cameras, the iPhone camera just doesn’t seem to compare these days. Perhaps in the newer iPhone the camera will be better quality? Heard it will also natively support video too!

We cannot change the camera hardware in the iPhone so we must resort to various software applications to try and improve the photos as best we can.  One issue I find with iPhone is how noisy (or grainy) photos become. Hopefully the application I recently found can help eliminate some of that noise.

That application is NoiseBlaster (Omer Shoor).

I randomly came upon the NoiseBlaster application and by the icon it uses, I thought it was a game. I looked it up via iTunes App store on my iPhone and found out that it is to help reduce the noise (or graininess) visible on the photos I take with my iPhone, or does it?

Settings

The only settings NoiseBlaster has is what the output file size will be. I found under the 1600×1200 (Very slow) was not all that slow when saving the final result. Luckily it also saves a copy and does not copy over the original as some programs I have noticed have done.

Colors

The Colors menu I believe should be called something else, as you don’t really play with the colours of the photo at all. You get to adjust the Contrast and Exposure. This is great for those many underexposed photos the iPhone will take, but with Contrast, where is the Brightness adjustment too? They seem to go hand in hand, right?

Denoise

This is the main feature of NoiseBlaster, to be able to denoise you photos. The above photo I applied what looks to be just a bit over 1/3 of a denoise value. The more I denoised the image the softer the image would become. This to me isn’t the greatest result, to have softer photos after denoising, but perhaps in a later version (hopefully next update) they can add in a sharpening option.

Here are the before and after result of a  photo I took of Robyn (right) and my brother’s girlfriend Kristin (left) while at the Giggledamn in Port Coquitlam BC.

Before using NoiseBlaster

After using NoiseBlaster

I don’t know about you but, the difference in noise between the two above photos seem to be a bit marginal. I also think uploading to Flickr might have reduced the quality a tad bit too. The After shot almost looks like someone took a photo from an old TV show or something. It probably also did not help that I had a halogen light in the background facing towards me.

Final Thoughts

For the $0.99 that NoiseBlaster costs it does get rid of noise but, at a cost of softening up your photo too.  I do like that I can bump up the Exposure level if I need to, as in the photo above, so to me the $0.99 would be worth the Exposure portion. Though I am sure there are better iPhone applications out there that can do that and more with your photos.

If they add the ability to sharpen the images after  you’ve used the denoising tool, then this application would be worth downloading and paying the $0.99 for. What can I say, I’m cheep when it comes to my iPhone applications!

Pros:

• Can adjust Exposure level
• Does not save over original
• Denoise is alright
  

Cons:

• The more you denoise, the softer the images become
• No way to sharpen up images