# The Great Noise reduction challenge!



## Overread (Jan 1, 2015)

Yep I've decided its time that I up ones skills in noise reduction. However instead of just reading dry articles I'd rather have a look at what other people can do with their own skills with a view to then sharing those results and skills. 

Hopefully we can all pick up a little (or a big) something from others and learn some new skills in noise reduction.

So up I'm putting up a RAW shot I took recently which we can work upon. The shot is taken on a Canon 7D at ISO 12800 indoors so its pretty darn noisy. In fact its rather extreme and certainly beyond the cameras best, but why do this easy - lets do a challenge as all we learn on this will greatly improve shots with lighter noise levels.

Here is the drop-box link to it (it should work - hope it works - just remember to copy and paste it locally otherwise DB might do odd things). 

Dropbox - IMG_4859.CR2

Once you've got the shot make a note of:
1) The software you use and the order you use them if you use more than one
2) The steps and stages you use to reduce the noise - be as detailed as you are capable/desire to be. The more info the better as ideally we should each be able to replicate the results. 
3) Post up your method and your results and how you've found the shot to reduce noise with etc... Again more detail the better. 

I'm not as concerned about exposure or white balance changes here, this is really about focusing on the noise itself (both fullsize and resized).


My own method:

1) Opened and performed basic editing in lightroom. Noise removed at this stage is only colour-noise (which is at its default value). I removed no other noise with lightroom.

2) Opened to edit in Photoshop. 

3) In photoshop I opened up the Neat Image 3rd party addon to reduce noise. I used a 7D ISO 12800 profile from their website combined with area selecting a segment of the grey background and then using the "fine tune" automatic command to fine tune the noise filters based upon the area selection content.

4) In the next page I set the noise reduction setting to reduce noise and sharpen default values - reducing the Y value noise reduction to 40% and in sharpening setting it to 125% in the high setting.

5) Upon completion of the Neat Image I then used the Photoshop "Filters - noise - dust and scratches) with a radius of 1 and a threshold of 30. 

5b) at this stage i should have reduced the saturation in cyans (upon reflection and comparison to the original shots taken on the blue areas which are a bit overly strong in my first edit here). 

6) Results were then saved - I then reduced the size in a couple of steps (3500 - 2000- 1000 pixels on the longest side) sharpening with unsharpen mask as needed at each step. 
I could have done one final small noise-reduction sweep on the final stages










So now lets see and hear of your results


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## bribrius (Jan 1, 2015)

over my head overead. I don't have any of those programs, that is a lot of $$$ in software. don't even know what you are talking about. I can say you have me beat already as I cant get photos at iso 6400 coming out this clear. I hope this thread takes off as I could learn something here.


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## Overread (Jan 1, 2015)

Photoshop and Lightroom is under £10 a month for me at present with their sign-up scheme so that's the bulk of costs in software that I currently use (and before that I was using elements which is why I got Neat Image which I think was around £60 for a non-commercial licence)


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## qleak (Jan 1, 2015)

hmm I'm by no means an expert at denoising. My new favorite tool in darktable is the equalizer.

In the equalizer I did the following:

Smoothed the finer details in the choma. Brought up the contrast on the coarser choma just a tad. I didn't worry about the super fine details too much since I'm planning on scaling to 1000x like the OP




Aggressively smoothed the finer/medium details in the luminance. Brought up the contrast in the coarser details, left contrast in the medium/finer details unchanged.




2) Did the hot pixel quick fix.
3) Scaled





constructive criticism welcome. The equalizer is a somewhat new technique for me, but I like it cause it saves quite a bit of time


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## Overread (Jan 1, 2015)

I've never heard/seen that tool before - looks very complicated - though I can see how its kind of like playing with the curves and then speeding things up that way. 

First thing that stands out to me though is that your version has a lot of what appears to be colour noise (I think) all red-dots all over the scene. Otherwise it seems to give quite a pleasing result.


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## pixmedic (Jan 1, 2015)

LR 5.7 NR 60 and sharpening 25


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## qleak (Jan 1, 2015)

Overread said:


> I've never heard/seen that tool before - looks very complicated - though I can see how its kind of like playing with the curves and then speeding things up that way.
> 
> First thing that stands out to me though is that your version has a lot of what appears to be colour noise (I think) all red-dots all over the scene. Otherwise it seems to give quite a pleasing result.



The equalizer is like frequency separation with a split luminance and choma (color), they also have an edge correction tool to adjust sharpening artifacts across the different detail levels. 

Thanks for the feedback I'll have to be more careful with the choma. It could be the hotpixel removal tool to blame also.


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## JustJazzie (Jan 1, 2015)

Interesting thread! Im terrible at noise reduction so I won't participate. I will be here though, watching and learning!


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## bribrius (Jan 1, 2015)

I cant even get the file to open. just say not supported cannot load file. Guessing because it is a photoshop file? lmao


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## Overread (Jan 1, 2015)

Nope its a RAW from a Canon 7D so chances are it requires the 7D codec on your software of choice -- the codec should be up for download somewhere onthe Canon website or on your software manufacturers website


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## fotograph (Jan 1, 2015)

I normally work in Lightroom, but since I didn't want to add this photo to my catalog, I used Camera Raw.

1) I changed the camera profile from Adobe Standard to Camera Standard.

2) Enabled Lens Correction

3) Performed Basic Editing (I would have like to see this image exposed more to the right, it would have allowed this step to remove quite a bit of the noise in the image)

4) Detail Panel
    a) Sharpening {Amount = 25, Radius = 1.2, Detail = 25, Masking = 92}
    b) Noise Reduction {Luminance = 30, Luminance Detail = 100, Luminance Contrast = 25, Color = 50, Color Detail = 50, Color Smoothness = 50}

5) Opened in PhotoShop CC

6) Noise Ninja Plug in on a duplicate layer
     a) Auto Profiled
     b) Luminance Settings (Strength -8, Smoothness - 10, Contrast - 10)
     c) USM Settings = 0
     d) colors settings = 10, 10, 10 (standard settings)

7) add a mask and paint in areas of fine detail with a gray brush (experiment with how dark or light a gray to use. I was painting on a white mask and used a light gray, small soft brush)

8) Resample to 1000pixels wide (bicubic)

9) Sharpen in Nik Sharpener, Using control points so as not to sharpen the wall behind the rider.


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## Overread (Jan 1, 2015)

Interesting result, you got very much the same colour and contrasts that I did. 

Using layers and layermasks is something I've got to do more of - ergo be less lazy with noise reduction!

Exposure wise I agree, sadly I was pretty much at the limits I could do. Aperture at f2.8 widest it would go - ISO at 12800 as high as it could go and the shutter speed was 1/640. I could have dropped to 1/500sec, but I find that at that speed there is significant risk of blurry hooves/manes appearing (esp because the horse was shifting from this slower pace to a faster one through the display).


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## tecboy (Jan 1, 2015)

What do you think?


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## runnah (Jan 1, 2015)

Way too blu tecboy.

I will have to try this on my editing pc tomorrow.

I normally only use the raw editor for such overall noise reduction. When it's more focused reduction I'll bust out the layers and masking.


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## Don Kondra (Jan 1, 2015)

DxO Pro 10

Raw white balance from the saddle pad

Exposure Comp Highlight Priority Slight

DxO Smart Lighting Medium

Color accentuation - Vibrancy 20, Saturation 10

Noise reduction Prime, Luminance 50

DxO lens softness, Global 1.02, details 50, bokeh 50

Unsharp mask 250, radius 1.02, threshold 5, edge offset 1

Then in FastStone Image Viewer....

Resize to 1000 wide

Sharpen +2

Shadows 7, Highlights -4

Brightness 5, Contrast 2, Saturation 2

Hosted at Photobucket..






Cheers, Don


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## Ysarex (Jan 1, 2015)

Curious that you're not posting these to examine at full-res.

Anyway, you're all workin' too hard.

Here's Photo Ninja/Noise Ninja.

Noise Ninja values:
Smoothing: 10
Residual Noise/Detail: 55
Color noise: 50
----------------------------
Sharpening: 85
radius .75

Hand off to Photoshop and resize to 1024 px then standard Smart Sharpen for web display.

Joe


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## bribrius (Jan 1, 2015)

I dunno. I ran it through elements (first time using it) and getting rid of the noise doesn't seem the only problem. But with all noise photos you can get rid of it but the photo still comes out looking chalky and fake. Even ysarex's version above (and I can assure you he and all of you are far better at pp than me) still looks chalky and fake with that processed look. .


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## Ysarex (Jan 1, 2015)

Here's another one.

DxO 10: Raised the default Prime noise reduction from 40 to 50.
Activated default Unsharp Mask (normally default off).

Import to PhotoShop and resize to 1024 px and Smart Sharpen for web display.

Joe


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## tecboy (Jan 1, 2015)

bribrius said:


> I dunno. I ran it through elements (first time using it) and getting rid of the noise doesn't seem the only problem. But with all noise photos you can get rid of it but the photo still comes out looking chalky and fake. Even ysarex's version above (and I can assure you he and all of you are far better at pp than me) still looks chalky and fake with that processed look. .



Try gimp or raw therapee


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## Ysarex (Jan 1, 2015)

bribrius said:


> I dunno. I ran it through elements (first time using it) and getting rid of the noise doesn't seem the only problem. But with all noise photos you can get rid of it but the photo still comes out looking chalky and fake. Even ysarex's version above (and I can assure you he and all of you are far better at pp than me) still looks chalky and fake with that processed look. .



You're dealing with an extreme case -- out on the fringes. That's basically a 6 stop underexposure of the sensor in that photo. Back in the days of film a 3 stop underexposure went straight into the waste basket. So you have to temper your expectations here with the astonishment that there's an image recorded at all.

Joe


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## bribrius (Jan 1, 2015)

tecboy said:


> bribrius said:
> 
> 
> > I dunno. I ran it through elements (first time using it) and getting rid of the noise doesn't seem the only problem. But with all noise photos you can get rid of it but the photo still comes out looking chalky and fake. Even ysarex's version above (and I can assure you he and all of you are far better at pp than me) still looks chalky and fake with that processed look. .
> ...


something because even after the elements edit it only saves as a .dng file. I don't even know what to do with that. why I didn't post it. if it isn't a jpeg tiff or raw I aint got a clue. what the hell is a .dng file other than the only option it gave me to save it as?


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## fotograph (Jan 1, 2015)

I tried one using Topaz Denoise and turning off the detail panel in camera raw, and it did a pretty good job, better than my previous post, IMO.  Topaz is slow though, not sure if the time is worth the small benefit. So far to me the first DxO image looks the best, not as much melted look and cleanest.


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## Ysarex (Jan 1, 2015)

fotograph said:


> I tried one using Topaz Denoise and turning off the detail panel in camera raw, and it did a pretty good job, better than my previous post, IMO.  Topaz is slow though, not sure if the time is worth the small benefit. So far to me the first DxO image looks the best, not as much melted look and cleanest.



Caveat on that: DxO prime is amazing but it's got it's quirks. It really starts to fall down in the shadows faster than the competitors. It try's to posterize the low end -- in this case the rider's jacket. DxO doesn't support my main camera (Fuji) so I don't use it that often and maybe I'm missing a trick. I'll spend more time with it eventually but I haven't gotten around that problem so far.

Joe


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## qleak (Jan 1, 2015)

Ysarex said:


> Caveat on that: DxO prime is amazing but it's got it's quirks. It really starts to fall down in the shadows faster than the competitors. It try's to posterize the low end -- in this case the rider's jacket. DxO doesn't support my main camera (Fuji) so I don't use it that often and maybe I'm missing a trick. I'll spend more time with it eventually but I haven't gotten around that problem so far.
> 
> Joe



Joe,

Thanks for the nice description. There's some fairly hefty posterization in the horses shadow as well (both dxo edits)


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## Ysarex (Jan 1, 2015)

Here's another one -- same idea -- see what the converter does.

This is Capture One (stronger on the detail and weaker on the noise smoothing) -- my preference.

So Capture One:
luminance noise to 90 (max is 100)
color noise to 50
detail to 10
sharpness to 180 (max is 1000)
radius .5

Sized in Photoshop and Smart Sharpen for web display.

Joe


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## Ysarex (Jan 1, 2015)

OK -- rolled up my sleeves on this next one and took the Capture One conversion from above.

Ran a dupe of it through Neat Image and knocked down the noise pretty hard.

Blended the dupe and the above C1 render so that the Neat Image noise reduction is applied to everything except the horse and the rider's face.

Joe


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## bribrius (Jan 1, 2015)

Ysarex said:


> Here's another one -- same idea -- see what the converter does.
> 
> This is Capture One (stronger on the detail and weaker on the noise smoothing) -- my preference.
> 
> ...


that is what I have is capture one. I couldn't get it to load the raw from the canon. how did you get it to load it?


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## bribrius (Jan 1, 2015)




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## bribrius (Jan 1, 2015)

Ysarex said:


> Here's another one.
> 
> DxO 10: Raised the default Prime noise reduction from 40 to 50.
> Activated default Unsharp Mask (normally default off).
> ...


this is the cleanest by the looks of it.


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## Ysarex (Jan 1, 2015)

bribrius said:


> Ysarex said:
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> > Here's another one -- same idea -- see what the converter does.
> ...



Open the program -- go to the Help menu -- Click on About and tell me what it says you have: description and build version.

Joe


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## EIngerson (Jan 1, 2015)

Subscribing.


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## bribrius (Jan 1, 2015)

Ysarex said:


> bribrius said:
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version 2.4.7


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## fotomonkey (Jan 1, 2015)

Well, since others have already used NoiseNinja, I decided to download a trial of Denoise. Here's what it came up with using the raw-strong preset.


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## bribrius (Jan 1, 2015)

oh the one I posted last page, needing contrast. I ended up using google edit for that right in my browser. I didn't realize It had noise reduction too but found one in it. uploaded it with picasa and used google edit..


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## Ysarex (Jan 1, 2015)

bribrius said:


> Ysarex said:
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So current version of Capture One is 8.1. If you do have Capture One and it's version 2 then it's really old. You have a Nikon camera, sure you're not thinking of Capture NX?

Joe


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## bribrius (Jan 1, 2015)

Ysarex said:


> bribrius said:
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oh yep, capture nx2 sorry. lol


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## dennybeall (Jan 1, 2015)

Couldn't resist - did one with Adobe Camera Raw in 5 minutes only and it looks pretty good without more work.




Would look better if she'd have collected that dressage horses head a bit....


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## gsgary (Jan 2, 2015)

I can't see the point unless you are looking at prints


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## bribrius (Jan 2, 2015)

gsgary said:


> I can't see the point unless you are looking at prints


editing practice in case you need it how I am looking at it. You know for the few that actually might make it to print.


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## gsgary (Jan 2, 2015)

bribrius said:


> gsgary said:
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If its dark I shoot with my A7 good exposure and no need for noise reduction but 97% of my shots have grain which I don't want reducing


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## Ysarex (Jan 2, 2015)

gsgary said:


> I can't see the point unless you are looking at prints



It's interesting and it's an opportunity to learn. I get to learn something about the Canon 7D. I never take photos like this myself so it's a chance to test software under unfamiliar conditions.

Joe


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## bribrius (Jan 2, 2015)

Ysarex said:


> gsgary said:
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you want high noise shots?
 I could surely find you some to play with...


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## gsgary (Jan 2, 2015)

bribrius said:


> Ysarex said:
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No its called film


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## bribrius (Jan 2, 2015)

gsgary said:


> bribrius said:
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this isn't realistic for me. I shoot a lot in the dark and not all of it is long exposure at a hundred iso. I shoot right through up to 6400 at times.


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## gsgary (Jan 2, 2015)

bribrius said:


> gsgary said:
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Iso6400 is not that high


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## bribrius (Jan 2, 2015)

gsgary said:


> bribrius said:
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yes it is. I think it is anyway just by the image degradation .


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## gsgary (Jan 2, 2015)

bribrius said:


> gsgary said:
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This is 6400iso no noise reduction







and 16,000iso no noise reduction


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## bribrius (Jan 2, 2015)

different camera, different conditions.  I can get away with higher iso's in some light. Real low light the noise bugs come out especially with shadow recovery.


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## gsgary (Jan 2, 2015)

bribrius said:


> different camera, different conditions.  I can get away with higher iso's in some light. Real low light the noise bugs come out especially with shadow recovery.



You need too make sure you don't underexpose


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## runnah (Jan 2, 2015)

I ain't afraid of no grain.


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## bribrius (Jan 2, 2015)

gsgary said:


> bribrius said:
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> > different camera, different conditions.  I can get away with higher iso's in some light. Real low light the noise bugs come out especially with shadow recovery.
> ...


no doubt. And I actually shoot such extremes I should probably have a full frame and take up stacking.. The 7100 is afraid of the dark.   lmao


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## qleak (Jan 2, 2015)

bribrius said:


> You need too make sure you don't underexpose


no doubt. And I actually shoot such extremes I should probably have a full frame and take up stacking.. The 7100 is afraid of the dark.   lmao[/QUOTE]

The D7100 does just fine in the dark. 




20140121_0169 by n8.iverson, on Flickr

BTW you're hijacking the tread


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## jaomul (Jan 2, 2015)

Lightroom 4, sharpening 45, luminance noise 45, colour noise 30, sharpening and noise masks etc at default, lens profile ticked, tone curve set to medium, exported at 1048 pixels, output sharpening standard for screen, jpeg quality 100%


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## bribrius (Jan 2, 2015)

qleak said:


> bribrius said:
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> > You need too make sure you don't underexpose
> ...



The D7100 does just fine in the dark.



BTW you're hijacking the tread [/QUOTE]
if you are that worried about it being hijacked why even respond and post a photo?  haven't posted anything here but one horsey edit. And I shoot a lot at night. Given a year and thousands of frames I think if I say it doesn't like the dark that really isn't up for debate. you could disagree but I have shot It enough at night I really don't give a ratz ass  what you think at this point...


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## fotomonkey (Jan 2, 2015)

Can't we all just get along? 

Sent from my M470BSA using Tapatalk


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## Overread (Jan 2, 2015)

Even after many years one should always be willing to hear new ideas and approaches. Might be someone presents a new idea/process/method/software that changes how you approach things. 

If you're always closed to the idea of learning new things you won't ever learn them.


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## dennybeall (Jan 3, 2015)

We talk about taking photos with the ISO set at a high number, like 6400 or higher, but we also need to keep in mind about the amount of light available to capture the shot. We know the noise comes in if the LIGHT IS LOW and the ISO is needed to capture the information but what if the light is sufficient, do we still get noise?


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## Ysarex (Jan 3, 2015)

dennybeall said:


> We talk about taking photos with the ISO set at a high number, like 6400 or higher, but we also need to keep in mind about the amount of light available to capture the shot. We know the noise comes in if the LIGHT IS LOW and the ISO is needed to capture the information but what if the light is sufficient, do we still get noise?



Yes. If you raise the ISO the result is noisier than if you don't raise the ISO. Regardless of the available light. The amount of noise increases with the increasing ISO.

Joe


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## gsgary (Jan 3, 2015)

Ysarex said:


> dennybeall said:
> 
> 
> > We talk about taking photos with the ISO set at a high number, like 6400 or higher, but we also need to keep in mind about the amount of light available to capture the shot. We know the noise comes in if the LIGHT IS LOW and the ISO is needed to capture the information but what if the light is sufficient, do we still get noise?
> ...


Maybe not because you could be underexposed and will get more noise


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## dennybeall (Jan 3, 2015)

OK, did the experiment and Tsarex is exactly right. Even though the light is sufficient and the same for each shot, the noise jacks up as you crank up the ISO. At 6400 it was not that noticeable but at 12000 and HI it was very noisy.


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## Overread (Jan 3, 2015)

dennybeall said:


> OK, did the experiment and Tsarex is exactly right. Even though the light is sufficient and the same for each shot, the noise jacks up as you crank up the ISO. At 6400 it was not that noticeable but at 12000 and HI it was very noisy.



Exactly and this is where the "always keep the ISO low" theory is born. Or rather the "keep it as low as the situation allows" concept for ISO. Since raising it always triggers an increase in noise. The key is that raising it always delivers a cleaner shot than using a lower ISO and underexposing.


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## Ysarex (Jan 3, 2015)

Overread said:


> dennybeall said:
> 
> 
> > OK, did the experiment and Tsarex is exactly right. Even though the light is sufficient and the same for each shot, the noise jacks up as you crank up the ISO. At 6400 it was not that noticeable but at 12000 and HI it was very noisy.
> ...



I'd say that has been the long standing correct assessment, but we are seeing some recent changes in the tech that may require us to add a qualification. A new term is showing up as some newer sensors are being referred to as "ISOless." Give it a Google.

It only has minor implications for RAW ONLY SHOOTERS and is otherwise interesting from the standpoint of understanding how the bleep thing works.

Joe


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## Overread (Jan 3, 2015)

Certainly with the continued improvement of ISO noise and detail levels we might well enter a time when too little light becomes increasingly less and less a problem for getting quality photos. Especially for web and print display. 

The underlaying theory will still remain the same, we might just enter a time when the difference at output between ISO 100 and ISO 1600 is impossible to tell apart (or even higher ISOs!)


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## TCampbell (Jan 3, 2015)

Here's my version processed with Aperture and Noiseware Professional:






What I like about Noiseware Pro that I don't get out of many of the others I've tried is the ability to "tune" the type of noise and the aggressiveness of dealing with the noise and I can do this by tonal frequency in the image.  Typically I'll notice stronger noise in the shadows... weaker noise in the highlights.  But this image needed a lot of de-noising everywhere so I didn't fuss over the tuning.

Also... since the image was going to be down-sized to 1024 pixels on the longest edge, and resampling to a smaller size has the side-effect of de-noising anyway... I reduced the aggressiveness of Noiseware to avoid over-softening the image.  (Over-sharpened images tend to look like "plastic" and they lose the organic look of a real subject.)

Lastly, I did want to recover some sharpening.  But sharpening and de-noising are basically enemies.  So I didn't want to apply global sharpening to the image (as this basically fights to undo the de-noising by re-introducing more noise).  Instead I painted in the sharpening in only the areas where I felt it would help.  Namely the horse's head; the rider's head; the horse's tail; some saddle detail; hooves; and the dirt texture on the floor.  The wall in the background and most of the horse's body didn't get any sharpening applied.  

No other adjustments were applied (e.g. no color, exposure, etc. since this is supposed to be all about the sharpening.)


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## dennybeall (Jan 4, 2015)

Very nicely done. A recovery technique for problems of this type is a very useful tool.


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## bribrius (Jan 4, 2015)

dennybeall said:


> We talk about taking photos with the ISO set at a high number, like 6400 or higher, but we also need to keep in mind about the amount of light available to capture the shot. We know the noise comes in if the LIGHT IS LOW and the ISO is needed to capture the information but what if the light is sufficient, do we still get noise?


not as much. just speaking from practical experience. I shoot higher iso daytime  with limited light I will deal with much less noise than higher iso with even less light. I don't think it is necessarily LESS noise but often how much is visible. Underexposing and shadow recovery both bring out more. Shooting low light daytime higher isos it seems you would be less likely to run into a noise issue. least in my experience. if it were just iso that made the noise apparent then I couldn't compare two different photos with the same iso and have two diferent detectable amounts of noise. course shutter speed differences and exposure time with in camera noise reduction can often taint the samples.


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