                 MSU NOISE REDUCTION

                Plugin for RAW Magick
                  Version 1.0 (beta)



This is a plugin for advanced noise reduction in digital images.
It has an automatic noise level detection system that adapts to noise
of different grain and chromaticity. Unlike conventional denoising
algorithms that just blur the image in even areas, our approach based
on wavelet decomposition allows to suppress noise "throughout the detail"
without general blur of the details.


INSTALLATION

To install this plugin, just copy MSUNoiseReduction.dll file
to Raw Magick/Plugins/Filters and Raw Magick/Plugins/Batchfilters
directories.


PLUGIN CONTROLS

Luminance/chrominance threshold sliders allow you to adjust the way
how plugin detects image details and discriminates them for noise.
Higher values make plugin suppress more noise at the expense of losing
some image details. Lower values leave all image details at the expense
of some more noise left.

Luminance/chrominance suppression sliders tell plugin to leave some small
amount of noise in the image. Completely noise-free image may look unnatural
because all real world images contain some small amount of noise.
Specifying maximal suppression for luminance and chrominance noise (in decibels)
lets you to leave some noise to make the image more lively and possible
to retain some details that could be lost in the process of denoising.

Light/dark areas correction sliders enable to separately tune noise reduction
in highlight and shadow areas. It is known that typical digital photos have
more noise in shadow areas and less noise in highlight areas. By setting
light areas correction slider to negative values you can lower the noise
detection threshold in highlight areas and leave more details there.
By setting dark areas correction slider to positive values you can suppress
noise in shadow areas stronger. If you set these sliders to positive values
and the noise reduction is still not enough  try increasing the luminance/
chrominance suppression sliders  they constrain the maximal amount of noise
suppression and you may want to increase it.


LICENSING POLICY

First time when you run the plugin, you will be suggested to register it.
You can skip the registration, but then the plugin will work in demo mode,
adding watermarks to the processed images. When you choose to register
the plugin, you will be suggested to select a hard drive to tie the plugin to.
The registration will last as long as this hard drive is present in the system.
You can tie the program to USB flash drive in order to move authorization
across the computers.
Each registered user can request additional authorizations for the plugin
if he wants to use the plugin on several computers. However our license requires
that only one instance of the plugin can be run at each time moment, i.e.
different users can not use the plugin simultaneously unless they purchase
additional licenses.


  Sincerely,
    Graphics & Media Lab team.
