The wavelet denoise plugin is a tool to reduce noise in each channel of an image separately. The default colour space to do denoising is YCbCr which has the advantage that chroma noise can be reduced without affecting image details. Denoising in CIELAB (L*a*b*) or RGB is available as an option. The user interface allows colour mode and preview channel selection. The denoising threshold can be set for each colour channel independently.
The wavelet denoise plugin for The GIMP reduces noise in an image using the algorithm copied and altered from the UFRaw program [Udi Fuchs] (which inherited the algorithm from dcraw [Dave Coffin]). Instead of denoising all RGB channels at once, the plugin implementation allows to denoise the RGB channels in dividually and - even more useful - to denoise the YCbCr or CIELAB channels individually. The colour model conversions are nearly lossless as the internal calculations are done in floating point numbers and rounding errors are avoided. Because the algorithm implements a wavelet filtering it runs quite fast.
This is part of a picture taken with the Nikon D80 DSLR camera at ISO 1600 in
RAW format. The face is lit by two candles and a colour temperature setting of
2500 K was used. The file was opened with the UFRaw plugin.

The goal is not to reduce all noise. The unpleasant part is the chroma noise
which appears only when shooting the camera in RAW mode at a high ISO speed. As
you can see the colour (chroma) noise is almost completely gone in the second picture and the luminance noise is slightly reduced. If you look closely at the face you will notice that the image details have not been altered much, the sharpness is almost the same.
Note that this is just the result of a uniform application of the filter on the unprocessed image. Masking the filter effect with a selection is possible which could improve the result even more.
This plug-in runs on multiple platforms:
Linux
The plugin can easily be compiled from sources but be aware that some Linux distributions provide packages:
Windows
There exists a pre compiled binary for the plugin here. (Thank you Francois C.!)
Mac OS X
'Gimp on OS X' provides a complete Gimp distribution which includes the plugin. You can download it here. (Thanks, Simone!)
The most significant changes are the introduction of noise profiling and internationalization.
There are several changes that have been made to improve the plugin.
Apart from that minor other changes have been made.
The plugin is distributed under the General Public License (GPL).
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| wavelet-denoise-0.2-win.zip | 134.91 KB |
| wavelet-denoise-0.3.1.tar.gz | 26.65 KB |
Comments
How to guide for openSUSE?
Hello,
I am a linux novice and am unable to install wavelet denoise plugin on the openSUSE platform.
I have downloaded the tar.gz version of the plugin, and when I get the following when I run make:
In file included from plugin.c:16:0:
plugin.h:21:26: fatal error: libgimp/gimp.h: No such file or directory
compilation terminated.
make[1]: *** [plugin.o] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/pushanthu/Downloads/wavelet-denoise-0.3.1/src'
make: *** [src] Error 2
***********************************************************
I could not find libgimp on my machine. All I could find were a bunch of files with the following names and no reference to libgimp folder.
./usr/lib/libgimp-2.0.so.0
./usr/lib/libgimpwidgets-2.0.so.0.600.11
./usr/lib/libgimpwidgets-2.0.so.0
./usr/lib/libgimpui-2.0.so.0
./usr/lib/libgimpbase-2.0.so.0
I also saw that the plugin is available for ubuntu, archlinux etc under gimp-plugin-registry. However, none seems to be available for openSUSE. Has anyone successfully installed "wavelet denoise" on openSUSE? If so, can you please provide some guidelines on how to do the install?
Thanks,
sdravida
Re: How to guide for openSUSE?
Hi sdravida. Try installing a gimp-devel package if it exists. Good luck!
Thanks !
Marcor, your two plug-ins (Wavelet Denoise and Sharpen) are the most used by me during all my photo experience. I can't name more usefull plug-in than your two. Great, awesome job!
Thank you VERY much !
compilation with gimp-2.7
Hello
Is there a way to make the plugin install into directories other than default? I have gimp2.7 git compiled in /opt/gimp-2.7...
With respect,
Alexander Rabtchevich
Re: compilation with gimp-2.7
Maybe not automatically...
I'm not sure whether the plugin runs with gimp-2.7 at all.
Have fun trying and report your results here please!
gimp 2.7
After changing @gimptool-2.0 to actual gimptool path in Makefile user and global install sections installation passed. Making the same with Makefile from po directory made po files installed, but the displayed language is English.
Note: wavelet-decompose used deprecated procedure 'gimp-image-add-layer' instead of new 'gimp-image-insert-layer', which is said by gimp warning dialog.
Most recent for windows
Most recent for windows here
http://www.registry.gimp.org/node/24520
Note that are all installers...so you must click on the file to install
great plugin but
This is fantastic, thank you for sharing your work. It would be helpful (for a great many judging by the google searches I did) if your install file included details of the packages needed to install this plugin. On Fedora 12 I had to add the 'gettext' package and 'plugin development tools'. After that works as well, if not better than any other de-noiser I have used.
What to download?
download gimp plugin
Really Great
Wavelet denoise on Macports?
Wavelet denoise 0.3.1 release
Noise pattern
Noise pattern from image
Wavelet Denoise for Mac Leopard
make -C po msgfmt -c -v -o de.mo de.po 36 übersetzte Meldungen. msgfmt -c -v -o ru.mo ru.po 36 übersetzte Meldungen. msgfmt -c -v -o it.mo it.po 36 übersetzte Meldungen. msgfmt -c -v -o et.mo et.po 36 übersetzte Meldungen. msgfmt -c -v -o pl.mo pl.po 36 übersetzte Meldungen. make -C src make[1]: gimptool-2.0: Command not found cc -O3 -Wall -c -o plugin.o plugin.c In file included from plugin.c:16: plugin.h:21:26: error: libgimp/gimp.h: No such file or directory plugin.h:22:28: error: libgimp/gimpui.h: No such file or directory plugin.h:23:21: error: libintl.h: No such file or directory In file included from plugin.c:16: plugin.h:46: warning: type defaults to ‘int’ in declaration of ‘gchar’ plugin.h:46: error: syntax error before ‘*’ toke ...... plugin.c:40: error: syntax error before ‘{’ token make[1]: *** [plugin.o] Error 1 make: *** [src] Error 2i think the problem is, there ist no gimptool-2.0 on my mac. therefore i can´t compile the plugin. has anyone a solution? i don´t know how to install this plugin on my mac.Second
Yes, I would also like to compile this plugin on my Mac, and I also do not have gimptool installed nor can I install it. I'm using the Gimp precompiled binary, and I'm very very reluctant to switch to Fink or MacPorts (command-line compiling and installing can break your system if you do not EXACTLY know what you're doing - and I do NOT exactly know what I'm doing, and yes I DID already break my system ;-).
The post is already 2 years old, so hasn't there been anyone come up with a solution probably in the meantime? Or anyone kindly providing a compiled Mac version of this famous plugin? Please (beg, whine)?!
Best,
Kim
Mac version available!
Hi Kim and all Mac fans
I just found out that the wavelet plugins are available through 'Gimp on OS X' (http://gimp.lisanet.de/) where it is included in the their (binary) Gimp package! Have fun!
Sorry
Thank you!
sudo apt-get install libgimp2.0-devThis plug-in is licensed
This plug-in is licensed under GPLv2 and does not have the "or any later version" clause. This causes problems once GIMP switches to GPLv3+ and LGPLv3+.
The same applies to the code that has been taken from UFRaw. The UFRaw author has already been made aware of this problem, you should update the copied code as soon as the license there is changed, too.
Perfect to reduce high ASA CCD Noise
Really Amazing - Version 0.3 for windows?
Wavelet denoise 0.3 beta released!
I hope that the
Not working in 2.4.2
Re: Not working in 2.4.2
Wavelet denoise update
Use in script-fu
wavelet-denoise: Use in script-fu
I will start by explaining
Batch mode
Wavelet denoise error under GIMP 2.4.0 WinXP fixed with 2.4.6
Plug in caues error in Gimp
I am running windows XP home.
A search on Google suggested the problem may be due to multiple copies of libgtk-win32-2.0-0.dll. A search found copies of libgtk-win32-2.0-0.dll in the following directories: C:\Program Files\Common Files\GTK\2.0\bin (2.10.6.0) and, C:\Program Files\GIMP-2.0\bin (2.10.14.0).
I sent the entire C:\Program Files\GIMP-2.0 directory to the recycle bin and restarted windows. However I still get the error.
Wavelet denoise 0.2: Windows binary released
Incomplete install instructions
Re: Incomplete install instructions
Wavelet denoise v0.2 released!
Finally the new version of wavelet denoise has been released!
There is one or two important difference between the final release and the beta version: the plugin now operates on linear image data (as opposed to gamma corrected data) and the processing speed has been increased.
Here's the complete list of changes from version 0.1.1:
Enjoy!
Wavelet denoise v0.2 released!
sharpening vs noise reduction
I had build the windows
wawelet denoise
Wavelet denoise: 0.2-beta released
The beta version of the plugin wavelet denoise 0.2 has been released. There are many changes - suggestions are welcome.
Changes:
Any chance of adding this to ufraw?
Any chance of adding this to ufraw?
You surely know that there is denoising in UFRaw. That's where I took the algorithm for this denoising plugin from. In UFRaw the denoising is done on linear data before bayer interpolation and therefore colour model conversions cannot be made. It could be done after the interpolation though.
However, I share the belief that software is not perfect when there is nothing left to add but when there is nothing left to leave away. I talked to the author of UFRaw and I think he will not change it. (I did not request it, you know.) Note that there is no 100% magnification of the preview image available in UFRaw at the moment and that would be necessary for decent denoising.
What's wrong with using a plugin for the job? Let's not make UFRaw complicated!
Re: Any chance of adding this to ufraw?
Install error's
gimptool-2.0 --install-admin wavelet-denoise.c. Notice that the file's name is wavelet-denoise.c not wavelet_denoise.cwawelet denoise : Any hope for windows binary ?
windows binary
Re: wavelet denoise windows binary
Thank you, JamesH, for providing this! I could not test it however as I have no Windows system with GIMP available. I will add it to the file list when somebody has checked it and if the license, install, readme files are included in the archive.
There will soon be another release with new features and I hope you will repeat this trick.