# My first HDR picture - help me!



## carlt (Apr 21, 2010)

I'm new to photography and recently bought a tripod which I took out with me last night to try out HDR-photography.

The image was created in Photomatix with a single RAW through Tone Mapping. Although I think I've managed to get a fairly pleasing result after masking out the sky and more in Photoshop there's still too much noise.

Please help me with techniques for reducing noise. I shot the image at 400 ISO - should that number have been even lower? Or would there be less noise if I had actually merged different images rather than using one RAW?

*Simply: how do I reduce noise in my HDR-photos?






*


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## D-B-J (Apr 21, 2010)

I found that when using one, i often get more noise than i would like.  Personally, i shoot 5 auto bracketed exposures, (-2, -1, 0, +1, +2).  I shoot in jpeg, because i find that it is easier than fiddling around with RAW images.  The thing is, when you have on image, and you push the exposure up or down, youre making the noise more apparent, especially when you brighten the image.  

I found for some reason that my first HDR image was REALLY noisy, but after i i did it a few times, they became less noisy.  

Do you have it on "reduce noise" when you hdr it??  You can also get plugins for ps, such as noiseware and noiseninja ( i am pretty sure those are the names.  Someone confirm that please. )


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## pbelarge (Apr 21, 2010)

Carlt
When I view your shot in the smaller version, I see a decent photo. When I opened it up...WHOA


There are a lot of tutorials online to help you get started with HDR. For your first attempt, not too bad, but improvement is defintely necessary.


I would not waste time on this shot, try to bracket shots and go from there. Remember, this shot is not just HDR, it is also a night shot - 2 different types of photography. So you will also need to work on your nighttime shooting skills as well. Again, there are many tutorials for that as well.

I have saved some favorites for them, if you cannot find what you are looking for, let me know.


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## Bynx (Apr 21, 2010)

I remember reading somewhere that when doing an HDR of night shot if you include a shot with the lens cap on this will help eliminate the noise. If anyone has more info on this it will be interesting to post. As for your shot I think it is an excellent first attempt. I havent opened it but as I see it on the screen it looks superb.


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## iArts (Apr 21, 2010)

Very cool composition.But you really do have a huge amount of noise.First of all,use the lowest ISO you have,be it 100 or 200.Next thing,there's one slider in Photomatix that really affects the noise.I can't remember which one right now,but try to play around with it.


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## da1nonlymikeo (Apr 22, 2010)

ISO200!! and I like to finish my pics up with Topaz Denoise it is amazing. its cheap and is a great friend of night time shots


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## DaveAllen (Apr 23, 2010)

I'll 3rd the lower ISO comments, 200 would have given better results...


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## gregg_UCT (Apr 23, 2010)

CarlT:

One of the things you can do to reduce grain is to do an exposure series and merge at least 3 images, perhaps -2, 0, +2 EV. Here&#8217;s one of our tutorials about exposing for HDR: [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzSrVJOsyJM]YouTube - Exposing for HDR.screenflow[/ame]

It looks like you took a single raw file and tried to process it too much, which can exaggerate the grain. If you do an exposure sequence, the HDR process will take the sweet spot from each of the images to provide the final merged result so it doesn't exaggerate noise as much as the single shot method does.

You might want to download our 30-day free trial for HDR PhotoStudio (with no watermarks) Download HDR PhotoStudio

Our software is the only one that has noise reduction tools that work on the full 32-bit data.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any more questions.

Gregg


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## kgala0405 (May 5, 2010)

Their are a few ways to reduce noise in HDR.  While taking your bracketed shots, be sure you are using the lowest ISO setting possible.  I would also recommend that you take more shots than needed to cover the dynamic range of the scene.  I say this because tone mapping software will select the best tones from each bracketed photo and use it, if you have more shots your software will have a larger selection of tones to choose from and this should eliminate some of the noise.

Once you start tone mapping you should watch the sliders that bring out fine detail.  The slider that does this in Photomatix is the "microcontrast" slider.  You may also want to increase the light smoothing setting.


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## eriqalan (May 5, 2010)

No
You are getting noise because you atre using a daylight camera for night pictures

Digitals can use all the "noise reduction" they want; noise happens because you are "amplifying" the signal to do night photography

Going to a full frame (Sony A850 / 900) would do much more to reduce noise than anything else but you have to accept the fact that noise is a natural result of using a technology not suited to the task


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## Brick (May 6, 2010)

da1nonlymikeo said:


> ISO200!! and I like to finish my pics up with Topaz Denoise it is amazing. its cheap and is a great friend of night time shots



I second both of these.  I use noise reduction software on nearly all my HDR's.


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