Snoqualmie Falls And The Salish Lodge Review

Salish Lodge With Snoqualmie Falls

Laurie And I recently got back from a stay in the Salish Lodge in Washington State. One of the draws for me besides romance and relaxation was the added bonus that the lodges sit atop Snoqualmie Falls. These falls are a huge draw for tourists to the area, over 1.5 million visitors per year. The falls are quite impressive and have a vertical drop 100ft higher than Niagara Falls.

If you have come to photograph theses falls, compositions are surprisingly pretty limited. Most of the shots you see are taken from the upper viewing platform or anywhere along the upper guardrail. There is a snack shop / souvenir store with restrooms at this location as well. Additionally if you feel like a somewhat steep hike down to the base and through the Puget Sound Power Plant you will find more up close and personal compositions. The conditions you find below are directly related to the amount of flow the power plant is releasing. At times you will find a full lake with very little foreground element and other times you will see a boulder-strewn landscape. Spray from the falls is always an issue. At times the spray is so powerful you can feel it from the upper viewing decks.

I highly recommend the lodge for a short stay and also recommend the photography. When you first arrive at Salish lodge you will find the valet staff promptly greets you. The mandatory valet parking is a little excessive for my taste considering they are only parking you’re car a mere 20 or 30 ft away. I guess some folks really consider it a luxury however I find it a bit of a nuisance. If you want to get something out of your own car you must first hand in the valet tag to get you’re keys and then hand them back when you are finished. Then there are the etiquette rules about tipping. I kind of felt like that was a little Vegas-like.
The lodge has a wonderful Day Spa that is complimentary for all guests. Complete with mineral soaking pool, large hot tub with water feature, steam and sauna rooms as well. The staff doesn’t allow anything above a whisper inside the spa area and the hot lemon tea is a nice touch as well. For you gamblers the Snoqualmie Casino is very impressive Picturesque and clean and only 5 min from the lodge. The Falls are located just off I-90 about ½ hour East of Seattle. Situated between the towns of North Bend and Fall City. If you are in the area for the dinner hour I can highly recommend the Fall City Roadhouse, Located in Fall City about 5 min from the Lodge on Hwy 202; the food is fantastic..

Noise Reduction Software Reviews

As photographers we strive for a certain identifiable style that we can call our own and to that end we look for the tools that will help us achieve the best results in the digital darkroom. One of the biggest issues we face in postproduction is that of digital noise which is inherent to today’s image sensors and there limitations.

Most image editing software come with there own noise reduction solutions some better than others. I recently purchased the plug-in version of Imagenomic’s Noisware software. I am very pleased to say the least. The program is fully customizable but also has presets for Landscapes, portraiture ect.. The beautiful thing is that Imagenomic make a free Noisware Community Edition that works quite well. The only drawback is that you cannot save you’re
work as a 16 or 32 bit T.I.F.F.


Don’t’ get me wrong I do believe that there are other fine noise reduction software out there like: Noise Ninja, NIK Dfine 2.0, Neat Image, Alien Skin Image Doctor, Fred Miranda ISOx Pro, and the list goes on and on. For me I truly believe this is a quality product that works. After all balancing the noise and sharpness while retaining color saturation is a real balancing act that requires the correct algorithms. Here is a comparison between Noisware and Noise Ninja.For more comparisons of many other software go here. Imagenomic make other great products as well and even offer a bundle that includes: Portraiture, Noisware and Real Grain.