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Posts Tagged ‘Noise’

How to do Noise Reduction in Lightroom

08 Sep

Lightroom-noise-removal-before-after

When you capture images using a high ISO setting you will invariably end up with some noise in your photos. If the noise is distracting and if you want to remove it, then Lightroom can help.

A word of warning

Before start using any noise removal tool it will pay to understand that noise removal is generally achieved at the expense of losing some detail in the photo. This is because the noise removal process involves smoothing the image pixels, and this in turn compromises fine detail. In addition, the main Lightroom noise removal tool applies the fix to the entire image not just the areas where it is most visible, meaning that you can’t mask the result and limit it to only those areas you want to apply it.

Because of this, if you are a purist and noise reduction is an ongoing and significant need, then you may consider a dedicated and specialist noise reduction program such as Topaz DeNoise, Neat Image or Photo Ninja a worthwhile investment. However, for most photographers, the tools in Lightroom judiciously applied will suffice.

Identifying noise

Noise in photos comes in two types; color noise and luminance noise. Color noise is evidenced by multicolored pixels in an area of the photo that should show as a flat color. In the image below you can see that there are multicolor pixels in an area which should be solid blue.

Lightroom-noise-removal-step1

Luminance noise is monochromic so it will be less colorful and more like grain. Here is luminance noise in the sky of a photo captured at an ISO of 6400 in early morning light:

Lightroom-noise-removal-step2

Process versions

Whenever you import an image into Lightroom some noise removal will be performed automatically by the process version which is the camera raw technology Lightroom uses to adjust and render your photos. In each process version the technology has improved over that of the earlier versions. So each will render your photos differently and, in particular, Process Version 2010 included better noise reduction technology than the earlier 2003 version. This was carried forward to the 2012 version.

The current process version for Lightroom 4 and 5 users is 2012 so, if you have images in your catalog that you imported using an earlier version of Lightroom (versions 1, 2 or 3) which are still set to process version 2003 then you can achieve some immediate benefits in noise reduction by simply updating those images to the new process version. To do this select the images and in the Develop module from the Camera Calibration panel select 2012 (Current) as the process version (use the Sync option to copy the setting to all selected images).

Lightroom-noise-removal-step3

Removing noise

To remove noise from a photo, open the Detail Panel in the Develop module to display the noise reduction sliders. There you will find sliders for Luminance noise and for Color noise.

noise-default-LRFor raw images Lightroom automatically applies color noise reduction in the import process. So the Color Noise Reduction slider will be set, by default, to 25 with Detail and Smoothness set at 50 for all raw images. The Luminance noise slider will be set at 0, with Detail at 50 (see screenshot on the right)

Adjust the slider for the type of noise you are seeing in the image, either color or luminance. If you are unsure what type of noise you have, adjust each slider in turn to the maximum value to see which removes the noise. In some cases you may have both types of noise, in other cases one type may predominate.

Once you know what type of noise you are trying to remove, adjust the slider for that type of noise by dragging it to the right. Aim to reduce the noise to an acceptable level, but avoid going beyond that point because, in doing so, you will lose some detail in the image.

Once you have adjusted the Luminance Noise slider you can then adjust its Detail and Contrast sliders. The Detail slider controls the luminance noise threshold – the higher the value the more detail in the image but, as a result, you may experience some residual noise. If you use a lower value you will get a smoother result but with less detail.

Lightroom-noise-removal-step4

The Contrast slider controls luminance contrast so high values will retain more contrast but you may also see more noise and mottling in the image. Lower values will give you a smoother result but again at the expense of reducing contrast.

For Color Noise there are two additional sliders: Detail and Smoothness (the latter was added in Lightroom 5.2). The Detail slider controls the color noise threshold, so adjusting this to a higher value will protect detail in thin colored edges but often at the expense of removing speckled color. Lower values will give you some added smoothing of the color noise but, as a result, 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 apparent:

Lightroom-noise-removal-step5

Once the color noise is removed, the Luminance slider will remove the remaining Luminance noise:

Lightroom-noise-removal-step6

When you are removing noise from an image it helps to be viewing the image at a 1:1 size ratio so you see clearly what is happening. Periodically zoom out to check the result.

Local Noise Reduction

If your image has luminance noise you can remove this from selected areas of the image using any of the three local adjustment tools: the Adjustment Brush, the Radial Filter or the Graduated Filter. These tools let you limit noise reduction to only those areas you want to affect, leaving other areas of the image unchanged. The downside to this feature is that there is no additional Detail or Contrast slider to fine tune the result, and it only works to remove luminance noise (not color noise).

Lightroom-noise-removal-step7

Using any of these tools select the area from which to remove noise, and then adjust the Noise adjustment slider. Drag to the right to remove luminance noise from the image. If you drag to the left then you will add noise to the image.

When you go to sharpen an image that you have removed noise from, pay attention to the Masking slider in the Detail panel. Using this you can apply sharpening to only the edges in the image and avoid sharpening areas of flat color where the noise was most apparent.

Here is a video tutorial showing how to reduce noise in photos in Lightroom:

If you have questions or comments please leave them in the space below. Hope this helps you with removing some of the noise in your images.

The post How to do Noise Reduction in Lightroom by Helen Bradley appeared first on Digital Photography School.


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Chokra-and-Awe: Loren Wohl Blasts Through The Fog and Noise

14 Nov

On the face of it, music photographer Loren Wohl's backlit photos of performance artist Chokra are themselves a series of cool photos. But dig a little deeper and they are a textbook example of gaining access and building out your book.

And the latter is just as important—if not more so—as the former.

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Removing Noise from Non-Dark Framed Long Exposures

05 Nov

One of the big disadvantages of taking long exposures with DSLR cameras is the introduction of noise especially when higher ISO settings are used. Camera manufacturers have addressed this by using Dark-Frame Subtraction, but taking advantage of Dark-Frame Subtraction (DFS) isn’t always possible.  If you’re shooting a sequence of images either for a night time-lapse or startrail photo DFS will introduce unwanted gaps or breaks. If you’re shooting extremely long exposures then your camera battery might not last long enough to complete your exposure, the dark-frame exposure and record the exposure to your memory card.   In regard to my pursuit of low-light or night photography for extreme long-exposures, star trails and time-lapses I’ve resorted to shooting without Dark-Frame Subtraction / Long Exposure Noise Reduction and addressing the noise in post-production.

The Technique

Here’s the technique I employ to manage the digital noise and hot pixels in my extreme long exposure photographs:

  1. Import & Edit in Lightroom

    After each shoot my photos are imported into Adobe Lightroom where I post-process my image to my personal taste adjusting exposure, black/white levels, vibrance, clarity, curves, etc.  Note: if you’re curious about the file formats I work with read DNG, RAW and JPEG: What I Use & Why 

  2. Lightroom Noise Reduction

    Toward the end of my post-processing I remove chromatic and luminance noise in Lightroom “Develop > Detail” module. To remove chromatic (color) noise it’s not uncommon that I crank the “Color” adjustment all the way to 100 leaving only dust or grain like noise that is white. (see images below)

  3. Open Image in Photoshop

    In Lightroom I right click on my image and “Edit In > Photoshop”. This opens my file with all my Lightroom edits applied in Photoshop.

  4. Duplicate the “Background” Layer

    When my photo is opened in Photoshop a single layer appears titled “Background”. I duplicate this layer which by default is named “Background copy”.

  5. Dust & Scratches

    To the “Background copy” layer (the top layer) I apply “Filters > Noise > Dust & Scratches”. A dialogue box will open allowing you to specify how drastically or minimally you want to apply the filter. This filter will remove noise by blurring the photo. Ideally you want to keep the Radius as low as possible and the Threshold as high as possible. Once doing this your image will look quite blurry and seemingly useless.

  6. Employing the Blending Mode “Darken”

    To the “Background copy” layer, that has had the “Dust & Scratches” filter applied, I change the blending mode to “Darken”. Magically this will allow the sharper lighter elements of the layer below to show through while keeping the noise free darker elements of the top layer. Once done the last signs of digital noise are removed.

Here’s How It Looks

To show an extreme example below are 1 to 1 crops of The Ancients a 91 minute single exposure taken on my Canon 5D Mark II.

1:1 crop in Lightroom straight out of the camera

Note the seemingly horrific amount of chromatic noise appearing as splotchy colors.

1:1 Crop in Lightroom after color noise reduction

With the Color slider at 100% all that is left are millions of white specks

 

1:1 crop with noise  

Even with chromatic noise removed it would seem there are too many white specks to make this a useable image

1:1 crop without noise

Applying Dust & Scratches and Blending it with the original image magically removes the white specks.

1:1 crop with comparing final vs noise

The same image showing the before and after to highlight the stark difference

1:1 crop from RAW import to Final

 

What does the end result look like on a web sized image?

  Web version with noise

Web version without noise

For web display the improvement may be marginal, but for prints this technique will make a notable improvement. My lone disclaimer is that your mileage may vary with this technique depending how much noise your camera produces, how long your exposures are and what ISO setting you use.

For more on long exposures check out my ebook Photographing the 4th Dimension – Time

Copyright Jim M. Goldstein, All Rights Reserved

Removing Noise from Non-Dark Framed Long Exposures

The post Removing Noise from Non-Dark Framed Long Exposures appeared first on JMG-Galleries – Landscape, Nature & Travel Photography.

       

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  • Photo Term Series #21: Dark-Frame Subtraction – Enclosure
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DxO Labs introduces Optics Pro 9 with ‘PRIME’ noise reduction

23 Oct

opticspro9-news.png

DxO Labs has released Optics Pro 9.0, a major update to its RAW conversion and image correction software. It offers improved highlight recovery, adds creative visual presets known as ‘Atmospheres’, and includes all-new ‘PRIME’ noise reduction technology that claims to offer significant image quality gains at high ISOs. The software is available to download now, with special a introductory price to November 20th. Click through for full details.  

News: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Dynamic range and Noise pages added to Sony RX1R Preview

05 Jul

firstimpressions.jpg

We’re working on Sony’s flagship compact camera, the 24MP RX1R, and as part of our usual testing we’ve updated our preview with noise and noise-reduction analysis, and our standard page looking at dynamic range. This is in addition to our studio comparison scene pages, and a real-world samples gallery showing just what the RX1R – which lacks an AA filter – can do. Click through for a link to our updated preview. 

News: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Nikon D600 Preview Updated with Noise & Noise Reduction Samples

16 Oct

nikon_d600.png

Updated: We’ve just added a noise and noise-reduction page to our hands-on preview of the Nikon D600. We’ve got a production sample D600 in the office, and over the coming weeks we’ll be adding test pages to the preview as we move towards the publication of a full review. Our final analysis of the D600’s image quality will come later, but for now, click through to see for yourself how Nikon’s newest DSLR measures up to its competitors in terms of noise in both JPEG and Raw mode. 

News: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Photoshop: Noise Averaging

13 Feb

Learn an interesting method of dealing with digital noise. To download a copy of the transcript for this video, view several other photography videos, and access over 100 photography articles visit my website at www.ronbigelow.com
Video Rating: 4 / 5

 

NEC to further develop noise suppression technology

17 Feb

NEC has announced its noise suppression technology has been integrated into the Casio Exilim EX-ZR10 digital compact camera. The technology, a development of the work first touted back in 2009, records the sounds of zoom and focus motors and subtracts them in real time, from any recorded audio. The technique starts with a reference set of lens and motor sounds and adapts to take into account the characteristics of the individual camera’s motor sounds and microphone behavior. The system allows motors to be run at full speed, rather than having to be slowed in an attempt to reduce noise.
News: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Adobe Photoshop CS5 Noise Reduction

15 Oct

Kerry Garrison from cameradojo.com shows the new noise reduction features in Photoshop CS5 Adobe Camera Raw 6.0.

Discussing ‘Smart Filters’ in Photoshop! Save 10% on your GoDaddy.com purchases! Enter coupon code: TUT1 Music: Kevin MacLeod

 

1 June, 2010 – The Best Noise Reduction Plug-In Yet!

27 Aug

The world is a lot less noisy than it used to be. The photographic world, that is.

In the days of film, ISO 400 was noisy in B&W, and in colour ISO 800 grain looked like golf balls. The early days of digital were not that much better.

But in recent years we’ve grown accustomed to ISO 400 as being almost noise free, and some pro cameras now allow shooting at over ISO 100,000.

But there are still a lot of times that noisy images need to be cleaned up, and a new king of the hill appears to have emerged, in the form of Topaz Labs DeNoise 4.1. Mark Segal‘s exclusive review is now online.

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