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How to Avoid and Reduce Noise in Your Photos (2021 Guide)

08 Jun

The post How to Avoid and Reduce Noise in Your Photos (2021 Guide) appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Barry J Brady.

We’ve all seen it in our images: that uneven grainy look that makes our images unappealing.

But how can you avoid noise? And, in cases where it’s unavoidable, how do you reduce noise in photos?

In this article, I’m going to share plenty of tips and tricks for both preventing and removing noise. Specifically, I’ll share:

Why you’re actually dealing with noise in the first place
Five simple ways to stop noise from ever appearing in your images
A noise reduction workflow you can use to reduce noise in Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw

Sound good? Let’s dive right in, starting with the important first question:

What is noise?

Generally speaking, noise is defined as aberrant pixels. In other words, noise is made up of pixels not correctly representing the color or exposure of the scene.

Why does noise happen?

Noise is introduced when you shoot a long-exposure image or use a high ISO setting on your camera.

(What counts as a high ISO setting? That depends on your camera model, but these days, most cameras start getting noisy around ISO 1600 or 3200.)

Does that mean you should never do long exposures or go over ISO 100?

No! There are times you may need – or even want – to use long exposures or raise the ISO. Landscape photographers, event photographers, and wildlife photographers shoot in low light all the time, which requires long exposures and/or a high ISO.

At the same time, there are simple ways to avoid too much noise in your photos, even when using the above techniques, which I’ll discuss in the next section:

Before and after noise reduction — Reducing noise in your images can make a huge difference to the overall quality.

5 ways to reduce noise in-camera

Below, I share the five methods for minimizing noise while out shooting.

Not every method will apply for every situation, which is why it pays to be familiar with all of them – and to carefully choose the right method for your particular shot.

1. Shoot at lower ISO settings

Yes, we’re starting with the most obvious method. But photographers often push their ISO too high, too fast, leading to bad image quality.

Now, if your camera is three years old or newer, the ISO functionality will be great. You shouldn’t see too much noise creeping into your images, even up to ISO 3200. However, there might still be some noise at the higher ISO numbers, such as ISO 6400, ISO 12800, and beyond.

So don’t raise your ISO with abandon. Instead, be aware of your exposure, and recognize that shooting at a high ISO will produce more noise in your images. Boost your ISO if necessary, but consider other options before dialing in ISO 12800.

Here are a few items to think about before increasing the ISO:

Open your aperture to its widest setting (e.g., f/2.8)
If you are shooting in low light, use a tripod and drop your shutter speed
If you are shooting a smaller subject (e.g., a person), use a flash

Each of these strategies will help you get a nice, bright exposure – without unnecessarily raising the ISO.

Of course, if your shots are still turning out dark, then you will need to push the ISO up higher. I’d recommend doing some test shots to find out your camera’s ISO capabilities and at what point the ISO settings start to really degrade image quality.

For many years, I shot on a Nikon D80, and I knew that anything above ISO 500 was really difficult to use. Noise at ISO 640 and beyond became difficult to remove. And if I was able to successfully remove it, the whole image looked like a watercolor painting thanks to the noise reduction process. So I worked within my constraints.

2. Shoot in RAW format

Does the idea of shooting in RAW intimidate you? It shouldn’t! RAW is a great way to get the best out of your images, so be sure to use it.

You don’t have to shoot RAW all the time. But when you notice that the light is becoming a little too dark, switch over to RAW.

Why is this so important?

JPEGs come with compression – a process during which noise becomes baked into your images. So removing noise in post-production becomes really tough (as does increasing exposure, which is often important in high-ISO situations).

3. Expose correctly from the start

Boosting a too-dark exposure will reveal noise – which is why it’s essential that you get your exposures right from the very beginning.

When out shooting, I highly recommend checking your camera’s LCD – including the histogram – to make sure you’ve nailed the exposure.

And don’t be afraid to take several shots at different exposures, especially if you’re dealing with a tricky scene; better to be safe than sorry!

Also, the higher your ISO, the more unforgiving the file. In other words: If you’re using a high ISO, you had better get the exposure right, because boosting an underexposed high-ISO image will result in a noisy mess.

(Of course, don’t overexpose, either. While overexposure won’t cause problems with noise, it will obliterate detail, which is never a good thing.)

4. Be careful when doing long exposures

Long exposures produce some of the most dramatic images.

But if the exposure is too long, the camera sensor may heat up, causing unwanted noise.

Don’t let this stop you from doing long exposures – if you love long exposures, then do long exposures – just be aware of how your camera handles the long exposure time.

In fact, you might consider shooting a series of long exposures, then checking each file on your computer for noise.

Then, once you’ve determined your camera’s limitations, make sure you don’t set your shutter speed for longer than your camera can handle.

The key point here is to know the limits of your gear and to shoot within those limits. You’ll end up with great images and have an easy time when editing.

long exposure seascape — Long exposure images can increase noise in a scene.

5. Use in-camera noise reduction

Most cameras offer a function called Long Exposure Noise Reduction, and if you’re doing long exposures, it’s a good idea to turn it on.

Why?

Well, as discussed above, long exposure photos are especially prone to noise. A long exposure noise reduction option is designed to counteract this issue – by taking a second shot after the first, then using the noise profile of the second image to subtract noise from the first.

Long exposure noise reduction comes with a serious drawback, though: it takes time, usually as long as the original exposure. So if you use a 30-second shutter speed, the camera will take an additional 30 seconds to get rid of the noise. And if you shoot for an hour, you’ll need another hour to reduce the noise, which is an annoyingly long time to wait!

So yes, it may be impractical if you are doing 10-minute shots. But for medium-length long exposures, it’s often worth doing.

(And if you do have the timed, do it on the very long exposures too, as it can dramatically improve the image quality.)

long exposure night scene — Use in-camera noise reduction for long exposures!

Reducing noise in Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw

Even with the best techniques, you’ll still end up with noise in your photos – at least on occasion.

Which is where post-processing noise reduction techniques come in handy!

Here’s my recommended workflow using Lightroom Classic or Adobe Camera Raw (but note that you’ll be able to use very similar methods in other programs):

Step 1: Open your image and view at 100 percent

Start by opening your image in Lightroom or Photoshop.

Note that RAW images opened in Photoshop will first go through Adobe Camera Raw, which is what you want. Also note that the controls in Adobe Camera Raw and in Lightroom are identical, so while the photos below are taken from ACR, the instructions are equally applicable to Lightroom users.

how to reduce noise in your photos Adobe Camera Raw noise reduction — The noise reduction sliders in Adobe Camera Raw are identical in Lightroom.

I recommend viewing your image full screen, then zooming into 100 percent. The goal is to look for noise; after all, not all images require noise reduction.

Adobe Camera Raw with noise reduction — Adobe Camera Raw has some powerful noise reduction tools.

Step 2: Adjust the Luminance slider

The Luminance slider reduces luminance noise (i.e., noise resulting from over- or underexposed pixels).

And many, many high-ISO images suffer from excessive luminance noise.

So zoom in to 100 percent, then boost the Luminance slider until the noise starts to disappear.

Don’t go too far, however,

Step 3: Fine-tune your result with the Luminance Detail and Luminance Contrast sliders

The Luminance Detail and Luminance Contrast sliders control the amount of detail and contrast preserved in your photos following luminance noise reduction.

You see, noise reduction smooths out noisy pixels, which automatically reduces detail and contrast. But by boosting these sliders, you’ll retain detail and contrast.

As you’d expect, the sliders do come with a drawback:

When you increase the values, you decrease the strength of the noise reduction. So while you’ll end up with a sharper image, you’ll also see more noise.

Step 4: Adjust the Color slider

The Color slider reduces color noise – which is the second type of noise you’ll find in your photos (often in the underexposed shadow areas).

So boost the Color noise slider, and zoom into 100 percent to see its effects.

Step 5: Fine-tune your result with the Color Detail and Color Smoothness sliders

As with luminance noise reduction (above), you can further adjust your image with the Color Detail and Color Smoothness sliders.

Want more detail in your photo? Boost the Color Detail slider. Higher values will protect thin, detailed color edges, but can also result in color speckles. Lower values remove color speckles but can result in color bleeding.

Want to keep colors nice and smooth? Boost the Color Smoothness slider.

And you’re done!

A final note on noise reduction

While I wish I could give you standard, one-size-fits-all settings for noise reduction, it just doesn’t work that way. Every image is different, so you’ll need to slide each adjustment around until you get your desired result.

I tend to increase Luminance and Color to about 50, then work from there. I slide each option up and down, carefully watching how it affects the image while zoomed in to 100 percent.

Then, after each adjustment, I zoom out to see the effect it has on the overall image. And if I’m happy with an adjustment, I move onto the next slider.

Is the process a little tedious? Sure. But if done properly, you’ll eliminate most of the unsightly noise in just about any image.

Practice is also important here, so try this on as many images as you can. Pretty soon, you’ll be able to predict the effect of each change.

How to avoid and reduce noise in your photos: conclusion

Now that you’ve finished this article, you know that avoiding and reducing noise shouldn’t be too complicated. Just follow the steps I’ve given, and your images will turn out great.

Now over to you:

Do you have any other tips for noise reduction and removal? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

The post How to Avoid and Reduce Noise in Your Photos (2021 Guide) appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Barry J Brady.

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How to Do Noise Reduction in Lightroom (2021 Guide)

26 May

The post How to Do Noise Reduction in Lightroom (2021 Guide) appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Helen Bradley.

Are you struggling with noisy photos? You’re not alone.

Noise is a huge problem, and it can easily ruin an otherwise great photo – but fortunately, Lightroom’s noise reduction tool allows you to quickly and easily remove unwanted noise. Once you’re done, you’ll be left with clean, beautiful-looking images.

That’s what I talk about in this article. I’m going to show you the step-by-step process for getting rid of noise in Lightroom. And I’ll share plenty of tips along the way!

So if you’re ready to master noise reduction in Lightroom, then let’s get started.

Lightroom noise reduction before and after

A word of (noise reduction) warning

Noise reduction is great, and it can easily improve your images.

At the same time, it’s important to note that noise removal is generally achieved at the expense of image detail.

This is because the noise removal process smooths out noisy areas; this compromises fine detail. Also, the main Lightroom noise removal tool applies its fix to the entire image and not just the areas where noise is most visible – meaning that you’ll lose image quality even in low-noise locations.

Because of this, if you are a purist and noise reduction is an ongoing and significant need, then you should consider a dedicated program such as DeNoise AI, Neat Image, or Photo Ninja.

However, for most photographers – including many professionals – the noise reduction tools offered in Lightroom, assuming they’re applied judiciously, will suffice.

The two kinds of noise

There are two types of noise in photos: color noise and luminance noise.

Color noise appears as multicolored pixels. In the crop below, you can see many flecks of color, yet the area is supposed to be a solid blue:

Luminance noise is monochromatic, so it’s less colorful and more like grain. Here is luminance noise in an early morning sky:

Lightroom noise reduction: step by step

Now let’s take a look at how you should approach noise reduction in Lightroom.

Step 1: Open the Detail panel

First, to remove noise from a photo, you’ll need to open the Detail panel in the Develop module. You’ll find sliders for luminance noise and for color noise:

For RAW images, Lightroom automatically applies color noise reduction during the import process. By default, the Color slider will be set to 25 (with Detail and Smoothness set to 50). The Luminance slider will be set to 0, with Detail set to 50 and Contrast set to 0 (see the screenshot above).

Step 2: Identify the noise

Now comes the fun part. You’ll need to carefully observe your image – I recommend zooming in to 100 percent or more – with the aim of determining the type of noise present. In some cases, you may have both noise types; in other cases, only one noise type will be a problem.

(Quick tip: If you’re not sure what type of noise is in an image, boost both the Color and Luminance sliders to their maximum values and see what happens. If you have a lot of color noise, adjusting the Color slider should make a big difference, and if you have a lot of luminance noise, the Luminance slider will have the greater effect.)

Step 3: Increase the corresponding sliders

Once you know the type of noise you are trying to remove, drag the corresponding slider to the right. Aim to reduce the noise to an acceptable level, but avoid going too far. After all, the more noise reduction you use, the more detail you lose.

Step 4: Fine-tune additional sliders

Once you’ve adjusted the Luminance slider, adjust the Detail and Contrast sliders just below it. The Detail slider controls, well, detail – the higher the value, the more detail that’ll remain in the image. Of course, the more you boost the Detail slider, the less you’ll remove the actual noise. (And if you use a low Detail value, you will get a smoother result but with less detail).

The Contrast slider controls luminance contrast. The more you boost this slider, the more contrast you’ll get in the final image. You’ll also end up with more noise and mottling. Of course, lower Contrast values will give you a smoother, lower-noise result, but at the expense of reducing contrast.

For color noise, you also get two extra sliders: Detail and Smoothness.

The Detail slider controls the amount of detail left alone by Lightroom’s color noise reduction; boosting the slider will protect detail. Lower Detail values will give you some added smoothing of the color noise, but you may notice that colors bleed into each other. (Adjust the Smoothness slider to help reduce low-frequency color mottling artifacts.)

In this image, removing color noise leaves some luminance noise:

Then, once the color noise is removed, the Luminance slider can remove the remaining luminance noise:

When removing noise from an image, it helps to zoom to 100 percent. That way, you can see what is happening on a pixel level. (Though you also want to look at your image zoomed out! I recommend periodically zooming in and out to check the result.)

Local noise reduction

What if you want to target your noise reduction to a specific part of your image? Is that an option in Lightroom?

Yes, you can do this – sort of. You see, Lightroom does offer a Noise slider as part of its targeted adjustment panel. So you can apply noise reduction via the Adjustment Brush, the Radial Filter, or the Graduated Filter, and you’ll be able to limit noise reduction to the areas you want to affect, leaving the rest of the image unchanged.

But there is a major downside to this feature:

It only removes luminance noise (not color noise), and there’s no additional Detail or Contrast slider to help you fine-tune the results.

Still, for images suffering from luminance noise, it can be useful, so I do recommend you try it out.

Select the area you want to denoise, then boost the Noise slider. The selected area of your image will instantly become less noisy.

By the way, if you sharpen your images after removing noise, make sure to use a light touch – increasing sharpness can increase noise. I’d recommend using the Masking slider in the Detail panel to keep the sharpening applied only to areas with lots of detail.

How to do noise reduction in Lightroom: conclusion

Now that you’ve finished this article, you can confidently reduce noise in Lightroom – for clean, beautiful files.

So grab some noisy images, then test out your new noise reduction skills. And don’t be afraid to experiment with different slider strengths; if you don’t like a change, you can always adjust it right back.

Now over to you:

How do you do noise reduction to your images? Do you struggle? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

The post How to Do Noise Reduction in Lightroom (2021 Guide) appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Helen Bradley.

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Mastering Noise Reduction in Lightroom: The Essential Guide

04 Nov

The post Mastering Noise Reduction in Lightroom: The Essential Guide appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Simon Ringsmuth.

Shooting at a high ISO is a great way to retain control over other exposure parameters such as aperture and shutter speed while still getting a usable image.

However, even today’s digital cameras still produce noise and grain when shooting at values like ISO 6400, ISO 12800, and beyond. While an ISO 6400 photo is never going to look as clean as a photo taken at ISO 100, you can use Lightroom noise reduction to clean up your high ISO images.

Mastering noise reduction in Lightroom involves a few tradeoffs. But it’s a great solution for people who need the flexibility of shooting at high ISO values while still getting great results.

Mastering noise reduction in Lightroom infant — Nikon D750 | Nikon 85mm f/1.8G | 85mm | 1/500 sec | f/1.8 | ISO 6400

To understand how to use Lightroom noise reduction, it’s important to learn a little more about ISO.

In a nutshell, ISO is a measure of a camera’s sensitivity to light. When shooting with film, each roll has a single value and cannot be changed until you use up all your exposures and put in a new roll. Digital photography, on the other hand, lets you alter your ISO any time you want.

Higher ISO values let you use smaller apertures or faster shutter speeds because your camera produces a brighter exposure. As a result, you don’t need as much light coming through the lens in order to take a picture. This means that you can use a smaller aperture, faster shutter speed, or both. (Or you can use Auto ISO and let your camera figure out the rest.)

The tradeoff is that increasing your camera’s ISO inevitably leads to noise being introduced to the picture. (Digital noise is kind of like the static you might remember seeing on old television sets.) High ISO shots aren’t as sharp, and colors aren’t as vibrant, thanks to noise. But if shooting at ISO 6400 means you can use a fast shutter speed to avoid motion blur, then it’s generally a tradeoff worth making.

Mastering noise reduction in Lightroom man portrait — Nikon D750 | Nikon 85mm f/1.8G | 85mm | 1/90 sec | f/4.8 | ISO 6400

The best of both worlds would be a high-ISO shot that retains the color and sharpness of a low ISO shot. Unfortunately, that’s not actually possible (at least not with current technology). But mastering noise reduction in software such as Lightroom gives you a great deal of control over reducing high-ISO artifacts while keeping as much detail as possible.

A closer look

The effects of high ISOs aren’t always visible when photos are downsized for the web. To really see what happens at high ISOs, and to understand how to clean it up, you should look at images up close.

Here’s a zoomed-in view of the above image; you can now see the effects of shooting at high-ISO values:

Mastering noise reduction in Lightroom portrait close-up — Up close you can see the speckled background on the left and the lack of definition in the eyebrows. These are just some of the effects of shooting at ISO 6400. Noise reduction settings are at their default values: Luminance 10, Detail 50, and Contrast 0.

Lightroom lets you remedy these ISO artifacts, at least partially, through the Detail panel in the Develop module.

There are two types of noise reduction available: Luminance and Color.

Luminance is the most common form of noise in digital photography and refers to the slight speckled variations in brightness from one pixel to the next. You can see this most clearly in the brown background on the left side of the above photo.

Color noise is often obvious at very high ISO values like 25600 or greater. It looks like random splotches of color scattered around the brightest or darkest portions of an image. In modern digital photography, color noise isn’t nearly as much of an issue in most instances. Most of the time you won’t need to use the Color, Detail, and Smoothness sliders. For most practical purposes, it’s best to stick with luminance noise reduction adjustments.

Lightroom noise reduction sliders mastering noise reduction

To access the noise reduction sliders, click the Detail panel in the Develop module. The noise reduction sliders are grouped with sharpening adjustments because these often go hand-in-hand. Boosting noise reduction can have a smoothing effect on your images which can be somewhat mitigated by adjusting the sharpening sliders.

Getting detailed

When working with luminance noise, there are three sliders to adjust:

Luminance
Detail
Contrast

Luminance is a measure of how much noise to remove, while Detail and Contrast give you finer control over the effects of the noise reduction.

You might notice that Lightroom automatically applies a small amount of noise reduction to every RAW file by default. This is generally a good starting point because RAW files, due to their unprocessed nature, inherently contain more noise than in-camera JPEG files. And it’s almost always recommended to remove some of that noise even if just a tiny bit.

To start the noise removal process, move the Luminance slider to the right. The farther you go, the more pronounced the noise removal effect will be. I generally don’t push it past 50, but your settings will depend on your image and your personal preferences.

After adjusting the Luminance slider to your liking, use Detail and Contrast to bring back parts of your image that might have been lost by the noise reduction algorithm. Move the Detail slider to control the threshold at which the noise reduction starts to kick in. This can help retain some of the details in your image but end up leaving some of the noise intact.

As you adjust the Luminance slider, you will see some parts of your picture get muddy, almost like a layer of petroleum jelly has been smeared across the shot. Use the Contrast slider to bring back some of the high-contrast parts of your image that are most affected by the Luminance slider.

As with many aspects of photography, there is no single correct answer for how much noise reduction to use in Lightroom. Some high-ISO images will look fine without too much tinkering, while others require more drastic measures. Mastering noise reduction isn’t about finding one solution that works for every image. It’s about understanding how to use the editing tools to create the best possible outcome for any given photo.

Low ISO versus noise reduction

To really understand how Lightroom noise reduction works, it helps to look at some comparisons of images so you can see the results for yourself.

The following images show different versions of the same scene; one base shot is taken at a very low ISO, while another is taken at a high ISO. I then apply varying degrees of noise reduction and display the results.

I took the first image at ISO 100:

test scene — Nikon D7100 | Nikon 50mm f/1.8G | 50mm | 1 sec | f/8 | ISO 100

Here’s the same scene shot at ISO 6400 for comparison:

When resizing images for the web, some of the issues with shooting at a high ISO are difficult to notice. However, a few artifacts do stand out, such as the muddiness of the solid blue radio toy, and a clear lack of definition in the intricate parts of the ball maze on the left.

For a closer look, here are 100% crops of each image:

test scene crop — A 100% crop of the original ISO 100 image. Note the fine detail in the cactus and the overall clarity of the picture.

test scene crop ISO 6400 — A 100% crop of the original ISO 6400 image. Colors are washed-out and subtle texture is obliterated. Note that the green paint lines at the borders of the white lines are completely gone.

When looking at these images close-up, it’s clear that the ISO 6400 photo is noticeably worse. However, if shooting at ISO 6400 or greater will give you the ability to get the shot you want, then it’s a tradeoff worth making.

High-ISO shooting becomes even more practical when you learn to eliminate some of these issues in Lightroom. Using the noise reduction options won’t fix a high-ISO image entirely, but it can go a long way toward cleaning things up.

test scene with noise reduction — A 100% crop of the ISO 6400 image with these adjustments applied: Luminance 80, Detail 60, and Contrast 55. While the ugly noise artifacts have been smoothed out, the image still isn’t as rich and detailed as its low-ISO counterpart.

Mastering noise reduction in Lightroom isn’t just limited to moving three sliders in the Detail panel. It’s best paired with other adjustments such as Texture, Clarity, Contrast, Saturation, etc. There is no one-size-fits-all preset to magically make your ISO 6400 images look as good as ISO 100 images. But with a little work, you can bring back some of the punch and brilliance of your originals.

test scene noise reduction and edits added — A 100% crop of the high-ISO image with previous noise reduction edits applied along with the following: Contrast -15, Shadows +34, Blacks -35, Texture +42, and Saturation +22.

Noise reduction isn’t a cure-all, and it won’t resurrect parts of the image that were never captured to begin with. In the ISO 6400 shot above, no amount of software-based noise reduction can bring back the green paint along the white lines that were clearly present in the low-ISO image.

But careful use of the tools available to you can go a long way toward making a messy picture more than usable.

Mastering noise reduction in Lightroom test scene — Nikon D750 | Nikon 85mm f/1.8G | 85mm | 1/250 sec | f/2.8 | ISO 6400. The sun was setting and I needed a fast shutter speed, so I chose to shoot at ISO 6400 and was able to adjust it in Lightroom. My clients loved the results.

Mastering noise reduction in Lightroom: Conclusion

Mastering noise reduction in Lightroom isn’t a science; each image is different and your own preferences matter most of all. Shoot some test images at ISO 6400 or higher, then see what you can do to clean them up using the tools available to you.

You might be surprised at how much latitude you have when editing. The more you experiment, the more skilled you will get.

And soon you’ll be transforming your photos from noisy messes into near-masterpieces.

The post Mastering Noise Reduction in Lightroom: The Essential Guide appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Simon Ringsmuth.

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Tips for Managing Digital Noise in Lightroom and Photoshop

26 Aug

The post Tips for Managing Digital Noise in Lightroom and Photoshop appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kevin Landwer-Johan.

If you’ve ever set your ISO toward the higher end of your camera’s range, you will find that your photos don’t always turn out so great. Digital noise is generally noticeable in photos that have been taken with a high ISO setting. Managing digital noise is important when you move toward the limits of your camera’s ISO range.

In this article, we’ll take a look at various techniques, both in-camera and during post-processing, for managing digital noise.

Person launching a sky lantern at the Loi Krathong festivlal in Thailand. — © Kevin Landwer-Johan. Nikon D700 | 70mm | 1/100 sec | f/2.8 | ISO 6400.

What does digital noise look like?

Digital noise appears like colored sand scattered through your photos. It’s particularly noticeable in darker and lighter areas of your compositions when you’ve used a high ISO setting.

Noise varies from camera to camera depending on the quality of the sensor. You’ll have noticed it in photos made with your smartphone at night. When the light is low and the ISO is high, a phone or camera with a very small sensor is prone to producing a lot of digital noise. On higher-end full-frame cameras there’s not so much of an issue with digital noise until your ISO reaches the highest settings it’s capable of.

At first glance, digital noise may not be so noticeable. But when you enlarge an image made using a high ISO, it is easy to see noise speckles. These speckles are discolored pixels and pixels with an incorrect luminance value. They contrast with the surroundings in an unnatural way.

Digital noise in photos is not the same as grain. Grain is associated with film and has a different appearance than digital noise. Different types of film have different grain structures. Grain can be used to creatively enhance photos, whereas digital noise degrades an image.

Managing digital noise detail — Detail showing digital noise. Nikon D700 | 70mm | 1/100 sec | f/2.8 | ISO 6400.

Two types of digital noise

There are two types of digital noise that affect your photos when you use a high ISO setting. These are color noise and luminance noise.

Color noise, or chromatic noise, appears as discolored pixels that contrast with how the colors in a photo should look. It’s most apparent in the very light or very dark areas of photos taken at high ISO settings. Sometimes this type of noise is difficult to eradicate. The best approach can be to simply convert your photo to black and white.

Luminance noise shows up as pixels that are brighter than they should be. When you raise the ISO setting on your camera, the pixels on the sensor become amplified and distort. Think of it as like turning the volume on your stereo up too high to the point that the sound distorts.

How can you avoid digital noise in photos?

The most surefire way to avoid digital noise is to keep your ISO setting low. This is not always possible, especially when photographing in low light conditions.

Raising your ISO increases the risk of adding unsightly noise, but it also allows you to choose a narrower aperture and faster shutter speed.

Getting sharp photos of action at night requires a fast shutter speed. And an easy way to achieve this is by raising your ISO setting. So it’s not always possible to avoid noise. Managing digital noise when you post-process your photos then becomes necessary. There are various tricks and tools you can use to do this.

launching a sky lantern during Loi Krathong festival in Thailand — © Kevin Landwer-Johan. Nikon D700 | 35mm | 1/100 sec | f/2.8 | ISO 6400.

Try this exercise to discover the highest ISO setting you are comfortable using on your camera:

Find a reasonably dark place to take photos of a static subject, such as a room with the drapes drawn or outside at night. Set your camera on a tripod, or on a firm surface where it won’t move.

You can set your camera to any exposure mode you’re comfortable with, but you must set your ISO to manual. And if you use your camera’s manual exposure setting, balance your aperture or shutter speed before each shot (so your meter is always reading zero).

Start with the lowest ISO setting. This is usually ISO 100. Take a photo of your subject. Then change your ISO setting to 200. Take another photo.

Repeat this process, doubling the ISO, until you have taken a series of images throughout the ISO range.

Study the photos on your computer. Zoom in to 100% and look at the digital noise. At what ISO setting does the digital noise appear to degrade image quality? The ISO setting below that point should be the maximum you use.

How can you reduce digital noise in photos?

sky lanterns being released during the Loi Krathong festival in Thailand — Unprocessed photo. © Kevin Landwer-Johan. Nikon D700 | 24mm | 1/100 sec | f/3.2 | ISO 6400.

Post-processing programs and apps have functions that can reduce digital noise in photos.

The less noise apparent in a photo, the more successfully you can remove it. If you’re too aggressive with managing digital noise, your photos will appear soft and blurry.

managing digital noise illustration from Lightroom — Detail showing digital noise.

Reducing digital noise using Lightroom

In the Develop module in Lightroom, click on the Details Panel on the right side of the screen. Here you’ll see a number of sliders. The ones you want to use are the Luminance and Color sliders.

Start with Luminance slider and drag it to the right. Then slide the Color slider if you still see some noise. Watch what’s happening to your image as you do this. You don’t want to slide it further than you need to. The further to the right you move these controls, the softer your image becomes.

The amount you need to adjust the sliders will vary from image to image.

Managing Digital Noise detail showing reduced noise. — Detail with noise reduced. Note the position of the Color and Luminance sliders.

Reducing digital noise using Photoshop

If you prefer using Photoshop, you’ll still find good controls for managing digital noise.

In the top menu select Filter>Camera Raw Filter. In the new window that opens, select the Details icon (it’s the two triangles). Here you have the same two sliders as in Lightroom: Luminance and Color. Slide them to the right only enough to get a satisfactory result.

Managing Digital noise in Photoshop — Detail of unprocessed image showing noise reduction tools in Photoshop.

You can further reduce noise by selecting Filter>Noise>Reduce Noise from the top menu.

Photoshop allows you more flexibility in reducing noise. You can isolate the problem areas with masks or multiple layers. This can help retain detail in important areas of your compositions.

Try this noise reduction technique

When you are photographing a static subject and have your camera on a tripod, take two or more photos.

Open two of the photos in separate layers of the same file in Photoshop. Once you’ve done this, the easiest way to reduce the noise and retain clarity is by changing the blend mode of the top layer. The Multiply blend mode usually works well. You can also experiment with Overlay and Soft Light blend modes.

Conclusion

Whenever I’m taking photos, I try to maintain the lowest ISO setting possible to avoid digital noise. In many low light situations, using a higher ISO setting is necessary to take photos without extra lights.

Each camera model manages digital noise differently. Use the experiment I outlined in this article to ascertain the highest ISO setting at which you are comfortable shooting.

Managing digital noise is now easier than ever. Cameras have more advanced sensors than early digital cameras had. And imaging software has also evolved to be better at managing digital noise.

The post Tips for Managing Digital Noise in Lightroom and Photoshop appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kevin Landwer-Johan.

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NVIDIA researchers develop AI that removes noise from images with incredible accuracy

10 Jul

A team of NVIDIA researchers, in partnership with researchers from Aalto University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has shared details of a new artificial intelligence (AI) program that can remove grain from images with such accuracy that it’s almost scary.

‘Using NVIDIA Tesla P100 GPUs with the cuDNN-accelerated TensorFlow deep learning framework, the team trained [its] system on 50,000 images in the ImageNet validation set,’ says NVIDIA in its announcement blog post.

What’s incredible about this particular AI is its ability to know what a clean image looks like without ever actually seeing a noise-free image. Rather than training the deep-learning network by giving it a noisy image and a clean image to learn how to make up the difference, NVIDIA’s AI is trained using two images with different noise patterns.

‘It is possible to learn to restore signals without ever observing clean ones, at performance sometimes exceeding training using clean exemplars,’ say the researchers in a paper published on the findings. The paper goes so far as to say ‘[The neural network] is on par with state-of-the-art methods that make use of clean examples — using precisely the same training methodology, and often without appreciable drawbacks in training time or performance.’

In addition to being used on photographs, researchers note the AI will also be beneficial in scientific and medical fields. In particular, the researchers detail how magnetic imaging resonance (MRI) scans — which are very susceptible to noise — could be dramatically improved using the program, leading to improved diagnoses.

The team behind the AI will present their work at the International Conference on Machine Learning on July 12, 2018.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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Adobe AI spots tampered images by focusing on noise and artifacts

26 Jun

Adobe researchers have developed a neural network that can identify Photoshopped images. The technology was detailed in a newly published study [PDF], which points out that it is often difficult for humans to notice altered parts of an image. However, differences between the original image and edited elements typically persist despite any attempts to obfuscate them, such as applying a Gaussian blur, and machines can be trained to spot those discrepancies.

Various differences may exist between original and edited image elements, such as different noise patterns and contrast levels. Manual adjustments to these edited elements can make them virtually indistinguishable to the human eye. Adobe’s neural network, however, can not only identify these changes, but also determine the type of tampering technique used to edit the image.

The system involves a two-stream Faster R-CNN network with end-to-end training in identifying manipulated images. The first, called an RGB stream, looks for various tampering artifacts, including big contrast differences and altered boundaries. The second, called a noise stream, looks for inconsistencies in the image’s noise to identify edited elements.

In the study, researchers explain:

We then fuse features from the two streams through a bilinear pooling layer to further incorporate spatial co-occurrence of these two modalities. Experiments on four standard image manipulation datasets demonstrate that our two-stream framework outperforms each individual stream, and also achieves state-of-the-art performance compared to alternative methods with robustness to resizing and compression.

Such technology could prove useful for verifying the authenticity of images used in photojournalism, photography contests, and similar situations.

Via: CNET

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How to Reduce Digital Noise in Astrophotography Using Exposure Stacking

09 Jun

Astrophotography has become increasingly popular in recent years, with good reason. There’s something about the night sky, stars, and The Milky Way that are fascinating to us. They remind us of how small we are and how huge the universe we live in really is. Photographing them can make for some pretty spectacular images.

How to Reduce Digital Noise in Astrophotography Using Exposure Stacking - night photo with Milky Way visible

Digital Noise in Astrophotography

As camera technology has advanced, photographing the night sky has become possible for photographers of all levels and budgets. Low-light performance continues to improve, allowing us to photograph the stars at higher and higher ISOs. However, digital noise continues to be one of the biggest challenges for astrophotographers.

There are a number of different approaches to dealing with digital noise in your astrophotography, from your camera settings to the way you process them in post-production.

Digital noise is caused by a couple of things. Firstly, the camera sensor heats up as it exposes an image, causing an increase in noise. Secondly, an increase in sensor sensitivity, or ISO, can lead to more digital noise in your images. As both high ISO values and long exposures are going to lead to more digital noise, you’re going to need a strategy to deal with it in your astrophotography.

path to the ocean with Milky Way in the night sky - How to Reduce Digital Noise in Astrophotography Using Exposure Stacking

Exposure Stacking

There is a technique called exposure stacking that is very effective in reducing the digital noise in your photos. You take multiple exposures with the same settings, stack them into layers inside Photoshop, align the stack, then Photoshop will create an image based on the median of all the stacked exposures. The final image will show the parts of your exposures that are consistent through each layer, like the stars. Because digital noise is random, and changes from one exposure to the next, it will not be visible in the final stacked image.

If you’re still following me, great. It sounds complicated, but I’m going to walk you through exposure stacking step-by-step and you’ll see it’s really not that difficult. It can take a little time to get right, but it’s totally worth it when you see the difference it can make in your night sky photos.

Milky Way beach photo - How to Reduce Digital Noise in Astrophotography Using Exposure Stacking

Capturing the Stars In-Camera

There are plenty of other articles that will teach you in detail how to take great astrophotography, so I won’t go into it here. However, there are a few considerations that are required to get the exposures correct in order to be able to use the exposure stacking technique later.

1. You need multiple exposures with the same camera settings. You can take as many shots as you want, but I would suggest using a minimum of 10. Try to capture them as close together as possible to minimize movement of the stars between each exposure. The more time that lapses from the first exposure to the last, the more work will be required to stack them properly.

2. Turn off Long Exposure Noise Reduction. This is probably called something like “Long Exposure NR” in your camera. It will cause each exposure to take twice as long when it’s turned on, meaning there will be twice as much movement of the stars between exposures. It also means you’ll be double-processing your images, causing a reduction in image quality.

3. Make sure the stars in your photos are pinpoint. They need to be sharp and have as little streaking as possible. You can work out the maximum exposure time to create pinpoint stars based on the focal length of your lens using this tool.

Import and Develop in Lightroom

Again, there is a wealth of information about how to process astrophotography in Adobe Lightroom. All I do in Lightroom is check each exposure to eliminate any images that are unusable due to camera movement, do a basic edit, then open my selected images to Photoshop as layers.

How to Reduce Digital Noise in Astrophotography Using Exposure Stacking

Use “Open as Layers in Photoshop” to do exposure stacking. Go to: File > Edit In > Open as Layers in Photoshop.

The main things to remember here are that you make sure to sync your edits with all the exposures that you’ll be using and to avoid over-processing the images in Lightroom. Avoid sharpening and noise reduction at this stage of the process. Also take it easy on contrast, clarity, and dehaze. You can perform more creative edits on the final stacked image.

Aligning and Stacking Exposures in Photoshop

Ensuring your images are all aligned correctly is vital when doing exposure stacking. If they are not, you will end up with blurry stars. There are a couple of ways to align exposures. Try the auto-alignment method first and if it doesn’t do a good job you’ll need to use the manual method.

Auto Alignment

Select all layers.
Select Edit > Auto-Align Layers…
Select Auto. Click OK.

How to Reduce Digital Noise in Astrophotography Using Exposure Stacking - auto-align layers

Manual Alignment

1. Make only the bottom two layers visible.
2. Select the second layer and change its blend mode to Difference. You’ll see the image go mostly black with white specks. The white areas represent the parts of the two visible images that are not aligned correctly.

How to Reduce Digital Noise in Astrophotography Using Exposure Stacking

Click Edit > Free Transform.

How to Reduce Digital Noise in Astrophotography Using Exposure Stacking - free transform

Click View and make sure Snap is unchecked.
Zoom in on a corner, hold down command/control and move the corner box around until you see the white parts of the image line up and turn black. It will take some trial and error.

How to Reduce Digital Noise in Astrophotography Using Exposure Stacking

1. Repeat with each corner of the image. You may need to go back to readjust a corner that you’ve already moved. It won’t be perfect, but try to get it as close as possible.
2. Press return to exit Free Transform mode, then change the blend mode back to Normal.
3. Make the layer you’ve just adjusted invisible and the next one up visible.
4. Repeat with every layer, aligning each one with the base layer until they’re all aligned as well as possible.

Stacking Layers

Make sure all layers are visible and selected.
Right-click on one of the layers and click Convert To Smart Object.

How to Reduce Digital Noise in Astrophotography Using Exposure Stacking

Click Layer > Smart Objects > Stack Mode > Median.

Finish up

When Photoshop has finished working its magic, you should end up with an image that’s much cleaner with significantly less noise than you started with. Your stars probably won’t look quite as sharp when zoomed into 100%, especially if the alignment wasn’t quite right, but you’ll be the only person who looks that closely. Don’t forget to crop the edges that have moved during the alignment process.

Now you can apply any other creative edits you might like to your image. You can either do this while still in Photoshop or save the image and apply the adjustments back in Lightroom.

This may seem like a complicated process, but once you’ve done it once or twice you’ll get much quicker. If you’re anything like me, you’ll find the effort is worth it for the lovely, clean, noise-free astrophotography images it gives you.

The post How to Reduce Digital Noise in Astrophotography Using Exposure Stacking appeared first on Digital Photography School.

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Researchers use AI to brighten ultra-low light images without adding noise

15 May

Researchers with the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign and Intel have developed a deep neural network that brightens ultra-low light images without adding noise and other artifacts. The network was trained using 5,094 raw short-exposure low-light and long-exposure image pairs—the end result is a system that automatically brightens images at a much higher quality than traditional processing options.

The deep learning system was detailed in a newly published study that points out the limitations of alternative “denoising, deblurring, and enhancement techniques” on what the team calls “extreme conditions,” such as low-light images that are too dark to discern without processing.

Using traditional methods to process these images often results in high levels of noise that isn’t present when using the machine learning technique:

The team used images captured with a Fujifilm X-T2 and Sony a7S II, and also demonstrated the system on photos taken with an iPhone X and Google Pixel 2 smartphone. High-resolution comparison images are available here, and a PDF of the full study can be found here.

This is the latest example of machine learning ‘AI’ being used to automatically enhance images—ideally speeding up post-processing tasks while reducing the user’s workload. Last year, for example, a system called Deep Image Prior was demonstrated using an image’s existing elements to intelligently repair damage, and Adobe and NVIDIA are both working on AI-powered Content Aware Fill.

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Major ON1 Photo RAW update adds tethered shooting, better noise reduction and more

10 Mar

ON1 just released a major update to its photo editing software ON1 Photo RAW. The update, version 2018.1, brings with it a host of feature upgrades, including: better auto-alignment for the HDR mode, improved high ISO noise reduction, and more detailed image sharpening. The update also includes a new tethered shooting function for certain Nikon and Canon DSLRs, as well as a new import utility that allows metadata to be added as images are sucked in from the camera.

Video files can now be seen in the browser, and new sort features allows user to browse imported images in a number of ways, such as by file type, date, file name or rating. Users can also batch rename groups of images, and a date-and-time editing function lets you adjust the recorded moment an image was shot.

Finally, the company has also made some changes to the way images are debayered to improve the amount of micro detail preserved in the final render.

ON1 says its priorities are image quality and processing/handling performance:

“Version 2018.1 isn’t just about the new features, although there are many powerful new additions,” says ON1 Director of Product Dan Harlacher. “Image quality and performance are the top priorities in every update, and we are very excited for our customers to experience these improvements for themselves in this update.”

New users can take advantage of a free trial, or purchase the software in its entirely (usually $ 120) for a special limited-time price of $ 80. If you’re already using Photo Raw 2018, the new version is free.

For more information, visit the ON1 website.

Press Release

ON1 Photo RAW 2018.1 – New Update Available

Portland, OR – March 1, 2018 – ON1, Inc. is pleased to announce the immediate availability of the new ON1 Photo RAW 2018.1, the first major free update to Photo RAW 2018. Version 2018.1 includes image quality enhancements, performance improvements, and key features to optimize the photographer’s workflow.

“Version 2018.1 isn’t just about the new features, although there are many powerful new additions. We’ve been very focused on image quality and the results customers get from using ON1 Photo RAW. Image quality and performance are the top priorities in every update, and we are very excited for our customers to experience these improvements for themselves in this update,” says Dan Harlacher, Director of Product at ON1.

New Improvements

Debayering – The algorithms have been improved to increase the amount of micro detail while reducing aliasing, yielding photos that are noticeably crisper with less color artifacts.
HDR – HDR alignment and deghosting have improved, yielding sharper results with less ghosting, noise, and color fringe. Users now have the ability to select which frame is used for deghosting and can also adjust the amount of motion visible in water and clouds.
Faster Cataloging – The thumbnail and preview generation of images is now faster. Searching photos has also been improved.
Noise Reduction – Improvements to reduce large noise from very high ISOs. Automatic hot-pixel removal has been added, and green and purple color aberration reduction has improved.
Sharpening – The sharpening algorithms have been improved to enhance micro details and provide sharper initial results.
Panorama – The panorama merge dialog now does a better job with vertical panoramas as well as really large ones. It can now stitch together up to 25 photos at a time. Blending of photos to compensate for differences in exposure and white balance have been improved.
Preview Quality – The preview window has been improved to more accurately reflect the details and sharpness in photos at different zoom levels.

New Features

Import – Get photos from your camera to your computer, choose where you want the photos to go, assign metadata, and more.
Tethered Shooting – Get your photos to your computer instantly and apply import settings. Currently supports Canon and Nikon.
Soft Proofing – Simulate what your photo will look like when it’s printed.
Metadata Templates – Add metadata to a group of photos using presets. This allows you to choose and save only the information you want applied to your photos.
Video Browsing & Organizing – Now supports viewing video files so you can organize those as well. Copy, move, name, add metadata, and more.
Custom Sorting – This option in Browse allows you to put your photos in any order you choose.
Batch Rename – Rename all of your photos in a batch to add unique information to filenames.
Edit Capture Date – Adjust date and time on your photos so they match the actual date and time they were taken.
Auto Advance – Automatically switch to the next photo during the culling process when rating or tagging photos.
Additional Camera & Lens Support — Added support for several new cameras and many new lenses. See the full list here.

About ON1 Photo RAW

ON1 Photo RAW 2018.1 is the only photo editor designed by photographers for photographers. ON1’s unique community-driven development approach via The Photo RAW Project gives customers a voice in how it’s designed, allowing users to submit ideas and vote on new features. With fast photo management, hundreds of customizable photo effects, powerful masking tools, HDR, panos, layers, and other Lightroom and Photoshop-like features, Photo RAW 2018.1 is the ultimate all-in-one photo editor and raw processor with no subscription.

Craig Keudell, CEO of ON1 says “Our vision for Photo RAW has always been that it would the fastest, most flexible, and easiest-to-use raw processor and photo editor on the market. A single photography centric photo editor with powerful Lightroom® and Photoshop®-like features photographers can own and enjoy for many years. Photo RAW has come a long way in a short time and we are both excited and very busy building new exciting technologies for our next update.”

ON1 Photo RAW 2018.1 isn’t just for raw files. Supported file formats include JPEG, TIF, PSD, PSB, PNG, and DNG are supported and benefit from the speed, performance, and abundance of editing tools in the app. Photo RAW 2018.1 continues to work seamlessly within current photography workflows. The app integrates as a plug-in for Adobe® Lightroom® Classic CC and Photoshop® CC and further builds its case as a complete standalone photo editor or alternative to the Adobe Photography Plan. Version 2018.1 also integrates with the major cloud services to allow for uploading, managing, and editing photos across multiple computers. This allows users to sync photos and their edits across multiple computers or in a studio setting.

Price and Availability

ON1 Photo RAW 2018.1 is available now for an introductory price of $ 79.99 for a limited time (Reg: $ 119.99). A free and fully functional 30-day trial is also available on the ON1 website. A single purchase of ON1 Photo RAW 2018.1 will include both Mac and Windows installers and activation for up to five computers. It comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee, world-class customer support, hundreds of free video tutorials, and free ON1 Loyalty Rewards every month.

For More Information

* ON1 Photo RAW 2018.1 Introductory Special
* Free 30-Day Trial
* The Photo RAW Project
* About ON1

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Good, Better, and Best Noise Reduction Techniques

07 Aug

When it comes to noise reduction, you always have two goals. First, obviously, you want to get rid of any digital noise in your picture. But secondly, you want to preserve detail. These often work against each other because increasing noise reduction often leads to a loss of image detail, but if you focus on preserving the detail then you may end up with a noisy picture.

Good, Better, and Best Noise Reduction Techniques

So what can you do about it? Different people have different methods, but for me, there is a good, better, and best way to go about noise reduction. As you might imagine, my good way is simple, the better way involves a little more effort, and my best way requires a lot more effort (and can be rather complicated). In this article, I will walk through my favorite options so that you can decide if one of them is appropriate for your own noise reduction workflow.

“Good” Noise Reduction

Lightroom has very good noise reduction tools. They are powerful and really easy to use. They reduce noise and do a decent job of preserving detail. Further, the noise reduction in Lightroom seems to get a little better with each new iteration. If you want a good noise reduction tool that will take up almost none of your time, simply use Lightroom.

Good, Better, and Best Noise Reduction Techniques

Lightroom noise reduction sliders.

The primary slider is the top one labeled Luminance. I think of that as the amount of noise reduction being adding to your photo. From there, you can fine-tune your noise reduction using the additional sliders below it. Frankly, however, if I am using Lightroom for noise reduction, it is because I want it to be quick and easy, so I usually just use the Luminance slider.

Suggested starting points

You may be wondering about a starting point for the amount of noise reduction to apply. Of course, that is hard to do, and it depends on a lot of things. First of all, it depends on the ISO value you used. It also depends on the low-light performance of your camera. However, I hate the “it depends” answer, so to give you an idea of a starting point taking into account those variables, here is a chart with some suggested values for the Luminance slider.

Suggested starting points for noise reduction settings in Lightroom.

Of course, there are other factors involved as well, which this chart does not take into consideration. For example, dark tones will show noise much more than lighter tones, so you may need to increase the amount where you have darker tones. Just use this chart as a starting point, and don’t take it as a definitive range that you must stay within. Always do whatever the picture requires, even if it is drastically different than what is set forth here.

Read more on noise reduction in Lightroom here: How to do Noise Reduction in Lightroom

Selective Adjustments in Lightroom

The noise reduction settings within Lightroom will apply to your entire picture. We are going to get into selective noise reduction later, but I should mention here that you can also use the Adjustment Brush in Lightroom to selectively add noise reduction.

Select the Adjustment Brush and find the slider labeled Noise. That’s right – you only have one slider for this, so think of it as the equivalent of the Luminance slider you used above. From there, just set your brush size (you can use your left and right bracket keys for this) and paint in the effect where you want it. You’ll see better ways to selectively apply noise reduction in a minute, but if you aren’t too picky about the selection then the Adjustment Brush might be the tool for you.

Noise reduction slider inside Lightroom’s Adjustment Brush.

“Better” Noise Reduction

Normally, when I want to bring out the heavy artillery in any aspect of post processing, I find that I need to head into Photoshop. That is sort of true here, in that we will be heading to Photoshop, but then again not true in that we won’t be using Photoshop’s noise reduction. I find that Photoshop’s noise reduction tools aren’t that great, and Lightroom actually works better (there are plenty of people that disagree with me though, so make up your own mind about that as you use them both).

Instead, I merely use Photoshop to take advantage of third party noise reduction software that works within Photoshop. Yes, you could also use them from Lightroom, but using them within Photoshop will allow you to take advantage of Photoshop’s powerful masking techniques (which you will see in a minute).

Noise reduction plugins

What are these noise reduction applications that are available? Let’s take a look.

Noiseware: First, we have Noiseware by Imaginomic. I mention this first because it is the application I have used for my own noise reduction for the past several years. It works really well, does a great job eliminating noise, is simple to use, and it preserves a lot of detail. There are several presets to choose from and then a few sliders to make adjustments from there.

Nik Define: A free option is Nik Define. It is part of the Google Nik Collection, which is now free. It does a nice job of reducing noise, and if you are looking for a free option this is a good one. The downside is that it appears this software is no longer being updated and its days are numbered.

Noise Ninja: This is part of the Photo Ninja Suite by Picture Code. The entire suite costs $ 129. I personally have not used it, but the reports I have heard from others and the reviews have always been positive. Read: How to Reduce Noise with Photo Ninja for more info.

Topaz Denoise: Topaz makes a series of plug-ins that do a variety of functions really well. Their noise reduction software is called Denoise and it costs $ 79 (or you can get the whole suite of apps for $ 500). I haven’t used this one either, but the reviews have been good and my experience with other Topaz apps has been very good.
Macphun’s Noiseless: Inside Macphun’s Creative Kit you will find the Noiseless plugin (you can also buy it alone). Read this for more info on this option: Macphun Noiseless Pro Software Review

Any of these will do a nice job.

Screenshot of Noiseware interface.

“Best” Noise Reduction

The best way I have found to apply noise reduction is exactly the same as the way you just saw, except that you apply it selectively. The reason is that noise reduction reduces detail in your image. It is often hard for noise reduction software to tell the difference between noise and important detail. That is particularly true in night sky photos, where the many stars can resemble the random flecks that constitute noise.

Basic Masking

To avoid having your noise reduction software reduce detail, you can use Photoshop to mask off the more important areas of the sky. To accomplish that, you just create a layer mask so that the noise reduction only applies to certain parts – which will be white in the mask – of your image.

A simple, but admittedly imprecise, way to do this is with a brush. If you start with a “reveal all” (white) layer mask, you will then use the brush (color set to black), which will keep the noise reduction from reducing detail in the areas you choose. On the other hand, if you start with a “hide all” (black) layer mask, you will paint the entire mask with white except the part where you want to preserve detail. You can get as course or fine as you want (or time allows).

An example of masking off noise reduction in an area where you want to preserve detail in the picture. This applies to the cliffs picture at the top of this article.

How to do you do it? First create a new layer copy (Ctrl/Cmd+J if your picture only has one layer, or Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+Alt+E if you have multiple layers already), then apply your noise reduction as you normally would. After that, just click on the Add Layer Mask icon at the bottom, which will create a white (reveal all) layer mask (or press Alt while doing so to create a black layer mask to hide all). Then just use your Brush (B) to paint with the opposite color as your mask.

You can get as involved as you want with masking. You likely have your own favorite ways already, so go ahead and use them. There is no right or wrong way to mask.

Applying Noise Reduction

So those are my three ways to apply noise reduction. You can add some quick noise reduction in Lightroom, which takes only a second. For slightly more involved but also more powerful noise reduction, add the addition application of your choice. For your most important pictures – or the ones with the biggest problems – add noise reduction and then use masking to limit the effect to the specific areas you want.

These are just my ways though. Do you have your own special methods that are different? If so, let us know about it in the comments below.

If you found this article helpful it is just one of 31 tips you will get if you grab Jim’s new dPS course: 31 Days to Becoming a Better Photographer. Enrollment for this course is only opened for a limited time and closes August 11th (5 more days) so get it now.

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