If you checkout RawTherapee from HG it have some new Options for NR which blow digiKam away just like that. Here are two example screenshots how the finished images look like Its a ISO 25'600 shot from the 5D Mark III Lot of detail (more noise): http://img6.imagebanana.com/img/eri1dtu9/screen.jpg Less Noise (less details): http://img6.imagebanana.com/img/nx1pzkp6/screen1.jpg The results are far away from what you get in digiKam (in a negative way). With the new "Luminance Detail" switch you can just push Luminence Noise Reduction to 100 and then increase Luminence detail to the amount of detail you want. The best balance of details and NR i ever seen so far, just incrdible. When watching the screenshots, remember again that those are ISO 25'600 and look at the neck of the Head on the Left. Try to get those details with digiKam without a lot of grain and mysterious artifacts. So i recommend to look at there Source (its FLOSS) and check how they done it + adopt it. If digiKam would have the same NR like RawTherapee, it would be able to be my ultimative tool for everything, right now i have to open High-ISO Shots RawTherapee always :( Reproducible: Always
Can you share on the web your noise image to test ? Gilles Caulier
Here is the Test-Image i used http://movies.dpreview.com.s3.amazonaws.com/canon_eos5dmkiii/5D3_5224.CR2.zip This is what the In-Camera NR does to the image http://www.dpreview.com/reviews_data/canon_eos5dmkiii/boxshot/5d3_5224.jpg The Camera NR is better than the one of digiKam but RawTherapee still owns both
New stable version of RawTherapee came out, improved even more...