We laugh now, but wait til we hit 2011 or so, and ISO 102,400. At some point the ads will just start saying that we can shoot under any lighting circumstance. Like during a power outage with no moonlight. Or black holes. Ok, I’m getting silly (until 2011).

Ya, so apparently Nikon decided that we couldn’t wait for the new decade, and just released this in time to put it on your Christmas list.

I would love to say that this is the perfect camera, but I can’t. Damn close though. More after the jump, including links and my take on it.First things first: check out www.RobGalbraith.com to get the scoop on this thing. He writes it up pretty well, and includes specs and other technical goodies.

How bout pictures? the Nikon Imaging Site has a D3s page. Take a look at that shot at 12,800 ISO. Wowwowweewow (yes that’s a word. Go watch Borat).

But the D3s does video now, right? So let’s see some movies. Nikon has a D3s/D3x microsite with videos. Too bad they’re tiny and in Flash video format. Great way to show off the quality, Nikon. Epic fail.

Finally, a D3s Brochure. So, enjoy the downloads to your hearts content.

So let’s start with the “bad”. First off, 720p video at 24fps, Nikon? really. So 2007. The 5D does 1080p, has full manual, and records at a fairly nice 38mbps. So what could Nikon have done to mix things up?

Well 1080p would just be a match, but how about variable framerates? 23.96, 24, 29.87, 30, 59.94, and 60. This would really make the D3s an amazing action camera, and force people looking to spend 5-10K on video equipment to reconsider. This could almost even infringe on the RED territory.

How bout something very editing friendly. The JVC GY-HM100U can record in a Final Cut friendly .MOV format. The 5D II records in AVCHD, which is standard, but Final Cut tends to rerender that file, which can take some time.

By going in the .MOV format, Nikon could have presented itself as THE camera for media journalists on the go. Imagine taking a CF card, copying files over, and being able to drop clips right into a timeline. While others are rendering files to start editing, you’re rendering out your video to publish.

I’d ask for some sort of audio options, like XLR, but that’s physically too big to introduce to the camera without major restructuring of the shape. But how bout an addon that would take wireless audio through the same port that the WT-E4A uses to transmit files wirelessly. Possible? No clue. But that port is there, so might as well use it.

Ok enough about the video. How bout the images?

Listen, they beat what I said (102,400 ISO) by a year and a few months. I’m still amazed. I totally expected 12,800 native (which the D3s has) and ISO 51,200 for the next rendition. Not this. So, ya, wow.

But why no low ISO love? Unless you get a D3x, you can’t get ISO 100. And even then its 100-1600 native, 6400 extended. Is it too much to ask for a compromise of say, 100-12,800, with extended to 51,200?

Any hope of a true 16bit NEF file? The pipeline for image data is already at 16bit, so keeping it at 16bit could be possible. And of course, higher dynamic range is always welcome. Imagine being able to shoot one of those dreadful high noon games and actually being able to see detail under the helmet/cap/sombrero.

I can’t really gripe about the lack of change in frame rates and megapixels. To be honest, 12 is a nice sweet spot and I hoped we could stay at that. I could even forgive 15mp in a full frame camera (which is why I have no love for the 50D and its clown-in-a-volkwagen-beetle stuffing 15mp on a 1.6x crop camera. Don’t even start me on the 7D). So kudos for sticking to 12mp, Nikon.

So that’s the bad. I think I took it easy on Nikon. Most of these things seems quite possible given todays technology. I won’t go asking for anything like an electronic shutter so you could go back to high shutter sync speeds of 1/500th or 1/1,000th  (CMOS sensors just can’t do that because they have a warm up and cool down time, whereas CCD can turn on and off instantly, hence the electronic shutter). I won’t ask for 15 fps or something crazy, or even RAW video (which the RED does now, but thats very proprietary and built from the ground up to do so, while Nikon is a camera company that happens to put video in their cameras now).

The good? Really, by now you should have read the links.

102,400 ISO. Anyone who’s ever shot HS football, or soccer, or volleyball, or any other sports in one of those horrible fields that’s lit by prayers and fireflies will rejoice. Once they can pony up the 5k for the camera.

Me? I’m hoping Santa has a soft spot for me. Maybe I can cash in a couple of Christmas’ worth of gifts for this one gift. Well two actually. I like two of the same camera. Maybe a third. Ya know, so I could set up a remote.

One last bit: For those of you that don’t know, I am currently using Nikon equipment, but even as recently as this weekend, also use Canon equipment. So if you think I’m biased to one or the other, I’m not. I really really want Canon to come out with something epic. Ultimately this type of competition is good for the consumer. Remember, a few years ago, if you needed to shoot at 1600 ISO and have it look good, Canon was pretty much it. Now? Not so much.

Questions, comments? lemme know.

First, VTC has been around a while. They offered training cd’s over a decade ago, when the concept was still new. So VTC definitely has a solid background in application training. But the second reason is what caught me: The email was from Mark Vernon,  the founder of VTC.

vtc.com is an online learning library similar to lynda.com, but with 80,000 tutorial videos. We started in 1994, delivering online in 1997, so we’ve been around a bit longer than most.
Check out the library using a 7 day free pass, using promo code “twitter”, at vtc.com/promo
cheers

Mark Vernon

The Virtual Training Company

So please, feel free to sign up and give it a whirl. Read on for a short review of the material as well as my overall opinion.

I actually received this email about two weeks ago.I didn’t publish it then because I wanted to try out some of the videos myself, gather an opinion, and put that into the post for anyone interested. First the bad.

The site design for VTC.com is a bit aged. It’s definitely not as colorful or friendly as Lynda.com. Even the videos tend to feel a little more old school in their presentation and feel. The videos themselves are current (training is available for the Adobe CS4 applications, for example), they just look like they were put together by older technology.

The navigation is a little spartan as well. Lynda offers navigation with multiple drop down menus, allowing me to choose by subject, vendor, application, or even author. VTC offers navigation by subject, and then takes me to a page offering a list of applications. There is a search tool however, so typing in Photoshop will take you to all Photoshop related lessons.

So why would VTC.com use an older platform to showcase their videos?

My guess is that it’s to maintain compatibility with their own LMS (Learning Management System), which allows them to offer their training as a system for corporate clients. This is good and bad. It’s bad because there are obvious limitations to the technology behind the LMS. To maintain compatibility, they can’t go too cutting edge.

But the benefits are numerous. VTC offers courses in English, French, and Spanish, and subtitle captions for several videos. If you’re hearing impaired, speak Spanish or French, or simply like to read along with your videos, then VTC.com is for you. Lynda.com will only give you videos in English, with no captions. It’s good to have choices. I’m actually considering taking some of the Photoshop courses in Spanish (which I speak and read, but only at a basic level) in order to learn the lingo for creative applications in a different language.

They have nearly 80,000 videos, covering a gamut of applications that I never even knew existed. How bout networking and security? How bout learning a new programming language? VTC.com goes beyond the standard creative applications that Lynda.com does (though Lynda.com offers courses on certain niches like Ebay, and WordPress).

They offer Quicktime and Flash, as well as having a High and Low bandwidth option. This can be nice when you’re on the road using a wireless card rather than a dedicated home network. It also helps when you want to view something quickly rather than wait for the higher quality download.

Content wise, the training is solid. Personally, I don’t recognize many of the names of the trainers for either VTC or Lynda, but I’m not necessarily in the e-learning industry, so I don’t know the bigger names as far as online training is concerned. In fact, the one name I recognized instantly on Lynda, Deke McClelland, I recognized from Total Training videos I had viewed.

VTC seems to have hired people from around the world, as is evident by some of the accents. I kinda dig that, but it can also cause me to break concentration when I decide I’m quite happily trying to do an impersonation of the various accents.

On another note, I did recognize the Photoshop instructor, Dwayne Ferguson. Kind of a weird character, but as it turns out, he was the guy behind Mutant League Football. The earth cracks in half during a normal game, radioactive stuff turns players into all sorts of mutants, but wanting to keep earning that paycheck, they play on in a new mutant league. Anyone who knows me knows that mutants playing sports and ripping each others appendages off sounds like something I’d want to watch even now as an adult. Where were we? Oh yes.

VTC offers payment options for one, three, and six months, as well as a yearly. The cost is the same for each of the plans except the yearly, averaging 30 dollars a month. The yearly is priced at 250 dollars. This is about the same as Lynda.com, which offers a monthly of 25 dollars, or a yearly of 250.

Ultimately, it’s difficult to compare VTC to Lynda. They both try to achieve similar goals, but in very different manners. If we were going by style alone, Lynda.com would win. But that’s just window dressing. Content being the main selling point, VTC offers a lot more options and features that Lynda doesn’t match. But if you don’t need to take a course on Sharepoint, then some of the subjects that VTC offers training in may not mean much to you.

My advice is that you take the seven day trial to see if their offering suits you. The promo code will run through the end of April.

The week long pass that I posted about last week expired. It was a very popular post on this blog, so I contacted Lynda.com to see if there were any other trials available or coming up. It took a few days, but they responded.

As I mentioned in my other post, Lynda.com is a good resource for training, and the monthly or yearly cost is a boon to anyone who has an interest in learning more than one application. For my review of the service, read last weeks blog post

Click more to read on about my response from Lynda.com customer service, and the link to the 24 hour pass.

After writing Lynda.com customer service regarding the expiration of the week long pass, I received an email a few days later. Here is their response:

Hello,

We currently do not have any other 7 day trials for you to share but we do have a one day trial, www.lynda.com/freepass/24 Please let us know if you have any other questions.

Thank you for your interest in lynda.com,

lynda.com Customer Service

So, the good news is that there is still a trial available. If you have a day where you can sit in front of the computer or laptop and really poke around, give that link up there a shot.

One thing to note: for some reason when I first went to the link, it didn’t work. I had to click the link twice, or refresh it. This may be because I’m already a subscriber. Just warning ya in case it doesn’t work the first time around.

Second note: They mention that by signing up, you become part of their newsletter, but won’t sell your info or anything. Fair trade for the pass I guess, but that’s a decision for you to make.

Questions, comments? Email me, or post a comment.

Let’s install Windows. Where was that disk again? Countless reboots and hours later, you have Windows. But no updates. Reboot more, like it’s going out of style. Ok SP3, here we are. But no Photoshop. No Photo Mechanic. Crap, even my email hasn’t been set up yet. Oh and if you run Vista, you may just be better off going without a computer until Windows 7 shows up.

The last time my computer went out on me, I reasoned that it was old enough to not be worth saving, so I went and got a Mac. That’s how much I hate reformatting. Also, to be honest, I was simply unprepared. So how could having software like Acronis True Image have saved me? More on that, and the link to the article and info after the jump.

Acronis True Image creates a copy of your drive, known as a disk image, in its current state. It can then write this file to an external drive, or DVD’s. Because it’s a copy of your current set up, you can use it to go back to this setup anytime. Lets say you create an image last tonight. Then today, you install some software, but somehow it messes up your computer. No problem, just use the DVD’s you created, and in little while, your computer will be set up as it was last night. For that alone, it’s a lifesaver. But there’s more.

Let’s say you got a new computer. Why would you need an image of that? Well, you really wouldn’t. But what’s the first thing we do when we get a new computer or laptop? Install software. Well what if you installed your software, and your computer was spiffy clean, and running fast. Why not make an image now. That way, when your computer starts slowing down, and maybe has a few too many glitches, instead of reformatting, and going through some Sisyphusian install procedure, you can load up that image from when you first got your computer. Now it will have all that software preinstalled. You can even take out all that software that’s bundled with your computer that you never want to use, install the programs you do want, and make an image of all that.

The best part is that the process is automated. Creating a boot disc and the DVD’s of your image takes a few clicks. Put in the boot disc and follow the instructions, and you’re back up and running, complete with all your applications.

BTW, I found out about this from Lifehacker. Much as I enjoy people visiting my blog, you could cut to the chase by going there and checking that place out. I found out about a lot of tools that I use for everyday productivity over at Lifehacker. Definitely worth a bookmark (maybe next to your bookmark for my blog?)

Here’s the article at Lifehacker (Click here) with instructions on registering for the free software

And the link to Acronis (Click here)

The link to the Acronis site is VERY busy. it took me no less than three tries and a minute to load it.

Feel free to comment, especially if you’ve used Acronis software in the past.

Even if you don’t like Acronis, you really should consider SOME drive imaging software. Ghost and DriveImage XML are both alternatives you should look into.

UPDATE: The trial offer has now expired. I will do my best to find a new one.

UPDATE 2/17/09: The trial is back on. I believe it will alternate on and off, so try it. if you’re in a rush, try the day pass in my other post. Remember, each one requires an email address.

Lynda.com has always been a great resource for a variety of training. In my experience using them for two years, I find that Lynda offers the best bang for the buck when it comes to training for creative tools. at 25 dollars a month, or 250 for a year, it’s hard to beat their offerings. They have training for all the Adobe apps (which do include the former Macromedia apps), as well as Apple’s own creative suites (Final Cut, Aperture, etc). I could spend another few paragraphs listing it all. Instead, just look at their online training library master list

So, is Lynda.com is a clear choice, a must have? Not necessarily. Read on for the link to the free trial (really, the best way to figure out if you want it), and my opinion on Lynda.com

First, the training varies in length and subjects. Photoshop training used to be more about Photoshop as a graphics editing tool, not really photographer specific. Recently that has changed, but it took a while. Also, they may not have a robust library of videos for the apps you really need.

I found as well that my ability to learn what I was viewing was very dependent on the style of the instructor. Maybe this isn’t true for all of us, but for me, I found people with higher energy like Deke McClelland kept me engaged. Others were the equivalent of online NyQuil.

The training is also basic to intermediate level. I’ve had the opportunity to try out Total Training for various Adobe applications. I really felt their product was better, and really geared towards someone who wants to work in the creative industry. But for 150-200 dollars per course, it had to be. Of course now (years later for me, sigh) they offer online libraries, for 299 a year. A good deal, if you specifically want Adobe, Microsoft, and audio training. Apple users, there’s nothing there for you.

Lynda’s goal is simply to get you comfortable using an application. How far you take it after that is up to you. Because it’s online, the videos are broken up into various sections. I don’t like having to click through video by video, but I do like that I can quickly cover a small topic by clicking on the relevant link. I do this often with Illustrator, where I forget as many shortcuts as I remember, so I’m always running through video snippets to remember what I need.

For an extra fee, Lynda offers access to the work files for certain training, such as PSD’s for Photoshop, and sets of Images for Lightroom. The first year I used Lynda, I had this service. I never used it. I honestly was too interested in learning what I needed to know, then use it on whatever I needed to know it for.

You need an internet connection to view the files, as there’s no offline caching of the videos. So if you were hoping to save hours and hours of training for an especially long road trip or airplane ride, try again. Lynda offers them for some courses, with a per course fee of about 100 dollars for a DVD. No thanks.

In a nutshell, Lynda is a great idea, but far from perfect. It offers basic training, which may not be enough for you. It offers a huge library of application training, but you may not use them all (I basically stick to Adobe, Apple stuff, Cinema 4D, and soon the WordPress training). It has a ton of videos, but no way to view them on anything but a laptop or desktop, maybe a netbook (mental note: get a netbook). And to me, the training really depends on the trainer. You may just soak in the knowledge regardless.

So uh, why am I recommending them? Because, as imperfect as it is, it’s still useful. Lynda is always on top of new versions of applications, even using beta versions to display the new features. This is great when evaluating whether or not you need the upgrade. They’re great about adding new applications. They just added WordPress training. I would have loved that 8 months ago, when PShizzy.com was born, but hey, I’m still gonna view it. All of the new and extra training is including in your monthly/yearly fee. Instead of having to shell out some money to buy a book (so 1986…) or get a new training DVD, I just log in, find the new stuff, and view.

But maybe you’re a book learner. Maybe you want HD quality video. Maybe you want specific training for a specific app to get you up to speed at an advanced level. Maybe Lynda isn’t for you. Why not try it out for yourself first, for one week, for free. Click the yellow link below. UPDATE: The trial offer has expired.

UPDATE 2/17/09: The trial is back on. I believe it will alternate on and off, so try it. if you’re in a rush, try the day pass in my other post. Remember, each one requires an email address.

Click Here for the Trial: Welcome, Fans of Deke.

If you’re a user of the service, please feel free to comment. Questions? Email me.

Note, this is Windows only, which makes me a sad Mac. Not really though, because I have a PC laptop.

EDIT: Link is up. Click on the links above, or HERE.

Let’s take email. Everyone’s got an email address. But not everyone supports the same file size for attachments and downloads. I can send 20MB files (thank you GMail), but you might only support 5-10MB (like my Cox account supports). Now what?

How bout IM’s? Excellent. I use AIM. You use MSN? How are we even friends? Ok I use Adium. What? Ya, it lets me use AIM, MSN, Yahoo, etc. Great. Wait, does it let me share files across? Yes. But crap, I’m on a router, so now I have a firewall. What, you’re on a router too? But it says the file is sending. Of course, it’s said that for the last 10 minutes. And ya, I’m just trying to send you a small jpg, so this should have been done nine minutes ago.

Ok how bout FTP? Great. I have one. Do you have a server? What’s your ftp address. What, that’s private. Ok. I’ll post the file on my webspace. Wait, now it’s too public.

Using a common protocol is tough for sharing because we may not have any in common. Making a file public is bad because now the file is public. It’s funny because the answers we seek end up being their own problems. So what if I had a place where I could store files, make them public or private on a file or folder level, share them via email, a special link, or otherwise, and generally have the ease of use of a download for our users, while we have the security of using a service with its own protocol on our backend.

Oh ya, what if it were free too, unless you want to move single files that are over 100MB (which at the rate cameras keep upgrading the sensors and megapixels might be next year)? Keep on reading!

And so I present to you, Mediafire. You don’t need an account to share files, but if you try to access your files from another computer, it’s not possible. Accounts, as I mentioned, are free. You are limited to 100MB per file, but unlimited space total.

Uploading files is easy. Just hit the big green “Upload Files to Mediafire” button. Then select all the files you wish to upload. You can only select files within a folder (not the folder itself), but if you have files within multiple folders, you can select any in one folder, hit OK, then hit upload more files to select another folder and any files in there. You can opt to save to your main area, to any of your folders, or even create a new folder to upload into.

Once you start the process, it will upload a few files simultaneously, and once each file is done, will proceed to verify the file (not sure what that process does, but I’m guessing a virus and encryption scan). On average, I have 1 or 2 files fail per 100 with some obscure error ID. The interface offers a Retry button for that file (while every other file is still uploading, so no time is really lost), and I’ve never had a file fail on a retry. Once everything is done, you can review the files, share them, etc.

Files are easy to share, and you can hit the share button to copy a link to the files for sending to others, or even email them the link from Mediafire. Mediafire even supports download plugins like Getright or DownThemAll, so you can resume a broken download. Nice.

Files and/or folders can be made private, public, or shared. Not only that, but you can share your Mediafire area, and can even get a custom URL for it. Here’s mine:

http://www.mediafire.com/pshizzy

When I access this area myself, I can view all my files, including private ones, as per the left. The viewing public can only access my public files, as per the right. So when you click, you’ll only see two Quicktime movies and a “softball” folder. I can also set a password on my files (the exception being images, which is weird), so that only certain people can download them. (btw, I used Firefox for the left, and Safari for the right, so I could simulate not having an account).

While you can’t see the private folder above, I can still opt to share a file in there. Here’s a link to a file inside my private folder.

That softball folder is a folder I used to show off Dropbox’s image gallery feature. If you don’t know about Dropbox yet, they’ve finally come out of beta, and the service is still awesome. Feel free to check out my review of Dropbox here. Mediafire also offers an image gallery feature, different from Dropbox, but equally as convenient in creating a gallery for you to display your images without any work on your side other than uploading the files. Where Dropbox goes for simple, Mediafire goes for thorough. Different size thumbnails, downloading, embedding of images, etc.

So, all these great options. There’s gotta be something wrong, right? Well, you can’t upload files that have a password of their own (so no password protected zip files, as an example). The 100MB limit isn’t a big deal, until you want to upload a large Photoshop file, or a big zip file or something. You can’t create any direct link files, so anyone who clicks on your link has to go through Mediafire and their ads (which pay the bills). You can even see an ad in the image above.

And the big one: While Mediafire offers some privacy features, anything that’s public is still really public. As in you can download the files, share it with others, etc. Not only that, but you can search Mediafire for any public files. Which means someone can search your public files. This isn’t a big deal if you just want to share pictures of the family or something. Without properly tagging your images, there’s no easy way to root out your specific files. Sure, we can look for jpg files in general, or mov or avi, but I’m pretty sure a website called Mediafire has a bunch of those. Just a hunch. Finding your specific files probably means that a person would have to guess the filename, or tags you added. So just don’t add tags (and why would you, unless you wanted to be found). But I do mention this because for some of us, especially the paranoid type (like me, who has duplicates of every file, plus online access with their own backups).

Pro accounts (starting at 6.97 a month) can eliminate some of these issues, but then it’s not free anymore, and what’s the fun in that?

So, there it is. The service isn’t perfect, but it is free, convenient, and safe enough (given that it’s free). I personally use it to store large movies that I have put on my blog, and for any file that’s a little to big to email to people. I wouldn’t use it for clients or anything, but see no problem with using it for files that I already wanted to be public or didn’t care if it went public.

Whether or not this service is something you can use is a personal decision. I hope that my article has at least given you enough information to figure that out.

From the crew over at Imagenomic (known for their Portraiture and Noiseware plugins), comes Instant JPEG from RAW. It’s not a program, but rather a system level utility. Right click on a folder, select the utility, and just like that the images are extracted. Sounds great. Here are my favorite features

1) Um, it’s free. This is big. I don’t like installing weird apps like Zoombrowser (which is free) to do one single thing. It’s a waste. But a simple utility, that’s right clickable? Awesome.

2) The Imagenomic folk aren’t strangers to many of us. I know a few people who use their Portraiture and/or Noiseware applications.

3) It’s cross platform. Since I rock a Dell laptop and a Mac Pro tower, these things are important to me.

There are limitations. The biggest one, as noted on their blog:

IJFR has no control over the look of the file. Since the file was created by the camera, it was the settings on the camera at the time of capture that rendered the file into what it looks like. In the case of a DNG exported from an application like Lightroom or ACR, it is the adjustments in that application that will affect the look of the rendered JPEG that is stored in the JPEG (it is called the Preview image).

There are ways around this, but it could be more work than just exporting out of Lightroom or Photoshop.

A little more info, the link, and thoughts after the jump.

So when is this useful? Well, that’s up to each of us. I’ve already thought about a few different ways this could be interesting. For one, reviewing photos could be made easier. When I’m done downloading, I could simply use the utility, then review the jpegs. I could choose my selects quicker, because the program has a smaller more managable file to review. Consider this: a current year camera easily takes a 12mb RAW image. Multiply that by 1k, and you’re looking at churning through 12gb of photos.

My laptop gets a little sluggish. It’s a core 2 duo pro, with 4gb of ram. My Mac handles it better. Of course, it’s a Dual Quad Core Xeon with 14gb of ram. yup, fourteen. So… uh, you could spend the cheddar to get that kinda performance. Or you could just use this free utility, review the jpegs, get the image numbers, and then process the relevant RAW file.

You can send out a quick JPEG for review too. The program will even resize (though it is limited to the size of the JPEG preview as its largest size). But sending out an untouched jpeg from the RAW file isn’t always the best move. Images are sometimes flatter, WB may be off, etc. If only we could “edit” the preview file.

Enter the DNG format. For those of us that use it (I don’t use it primarily, but do know how), it allows us to reinsert a JPEG preview file into the image. Simply edit your image as normal, then save out as a DNG. If you import files into Lightroom as DNG, then you’re already there. DNG’s can be very useful. Recently someone was asked to send a RAW file to a client. I don’t know who does this and who doesn’t, and I believe it’s pretty much up to the photographer if they’re willing to do this, but I do know that the JPEG preview from a RAW file can be unflattering.

The DNG file could be the answer. Simply adjust the settings in a program like Lightroom, or Bridge. Then save out the file as a DNG. This does NOT bake in the settings. It simply adds tags to the RAW data about the WB, cropping, exposure, and other settings. Now, when saving out the DNG, it will create a JPEG preview file, which DOES bake in these settings. But now the preview has been adjusted to reflect what the DNG will start off as.

This is a very flexibile solution. Your DNG is still a RAW file, for yourself or clients to edit. Your JPEG preview is a decent low res (or hi res: the DNG format allows full res previews) comp. You can extract that as needed, have the ability to redo the preview, and can always play with the DNG data.

Of course, this really only makes send if you already use DNG.  If you don’t, this may sway you. Not sure. I’m just offering options and opinions.

Here are the links:

The Raw Workflow Blog: this is where you find the blog posting and links to the file. You need to register, but again, it’s the good folks at Imagenomic. I don’t mind. If it were random startup Inc, then I might be a bit wary.

Imagenomic: These are the folk that created the Noiseware and Portraiture Plugins, as well as RealGrain. Their Noiseware plugin is a popular choice for noise reduction, and they even have a standalone Community Edition, which is slightly limited, but FREE.

Please, check them out. While the utility won’t change the way I do everything, I think it’s a nice tool to have, and supporting the creators only gives them reason to improve and innovate even further.

If you try it out and like it (or not), please feel free to comment. As always, I am on the lookout for applications and accessories that can make the average photographers life easier without making our bank account too much smaller.