Removing graininess due to low light?

[Erik Y.]

Im using cs5, Need to figure out how to make it less grainy as possible? Should i do unsharpened mask? or reduce noise? if so what values? I want this so I can present it to my sister and itl look like I actually put in some effort. thanks

 

[NemesisWorks]

you did use a mobile phone to take this image right ? man they suck in low light , even many digital cameras...

now it's the balance between noise and detail and the photo is in very low resolution..

Of course you can achieve better results than this.

 

[Tom Mann]

The EXIF and almost all other metadata has been stripped from the image you posted, so it's impossible to find out some important details like the type of camera you (or the photographer) used. However, it has obviously been processed to some degree. For example, it has been down rez'ed (apparently for screen display) instead of posting the original, full resolution version.

I bring this up because, by far, the best noise reduction is done using the raw data from your camera. This data is at the full spatial resolution and full bit depth of your camera, and before almost all other processing.

If your camera, or that of the photographer who took that photo, has the capability to save the image as "RAW" files, absolutely do so, then bring them into Photoshop through Photoshop's ACR ("Adobe Camera Raw") module. The last two versions of PS have quite good noise reduction, and you should use it. Here is a link to a good discussion of this: http://www.sally-jane.co.uk/tutorials/raw-acr-sharpen.html

If you have no choice but to work on the jpg image that you posted, you can also run it through ACR, but the results will not be anywhere near as good as if the input was a raw data file (eg, *.nef for Nikon cameras, *.cr2 for Canon, etc.).

If you want to try some different noise reduction methods, several different commercial plugins are available. Neat Image is very good (http://www.neatimage.com/ ), as is Topaz De-Noise ( http://www.topazlabs.com/denoise/ ). I believe that both are available as free demos.

BTW, as a curious coincidence, it turns out that the founder and developer of Topaz software products is also named Erik Y.

Also, I should point out that using the small version of the image that you posted in this thread for anything except a discussion like this is a very bad idea. It won't print well, and you can't do the best NR once the image has been shrunk to this size. Attached is about the best I could do with it. The proper way to take such a shot is to add a tiny bit of orange-gelled fill flash illuminating just the couple, not to try to fix their underexposure and resultant noise in post processing.

Finally, in your post, you mentioned unsharp masking. This has absolutely nothing to do with NR. In fact, it (and all other sharpening algorithms) almost always make the noise worse, not better. You also mentioned, "Reduce Noise". If, by this, you mean the module of the same name within PS, don't even bother to try. The NR facility in ACR is better, as are the commercial products I mentioned above.

HTH,

Tom M

 

[Erik Y.]

The EXIF and almost all other metadata has been stripped from the image you posted, so it's impossible to find out some important details like the type of camera you (or the photographer) used. However, it has obviously been processed to some degree. For example, it has been down rez'ed (apparently for screen display) instead of posting the original, full resolution version.

I bring this up because, by far, the best noise reduction is done using the raw data from your camera. This data is at the full spatial resolution and full bit depth of your camera, and before almost all other processing.

If your camera, or that of the photographer who took that photo, has the capability to save the image as "RAW" files, absolutely do so, then bring them into Photoshop through Photoshop's ACR ("Adobe Camera Raw") module. The last two versions of PS have quite good noise reduction, and you should use it. Here is a link to a good discussion of this

If you have no choice but to work on the jpg image that you posted, you can also run it through ACR, but the results will not be anywhere near as good as if the input was a raw data file (eg, *.nef for Nikon cameras, *.cr2 for Canon, etc.).

If you want to try some different noise reduction methods, several different commercial plugins are available. Neat Image is very good ( ), as is Topaz De-Noise ( ). I believe that both are available as free demos.

BTW, as a curious coincidence, it turns out that the founder and developer of Topaz software products is also named Erik Y.

Also, I should point out that using the small version of the image that you posted in this thread for anything except a discussion like this is a very bad idea. It won't print well, and you can't do the best NR once the image has been shrunk to this size. Attached is about the best I could do with it. The proper way to take such a shot is to add a tiny bit of orange-gelled fill flash illuminating just the couple, not to try to fix their underexposure and resultant noise in post processing.

Finally, in your post, you mentioned unsharp masking. This has absolutely nothing to do with NR. In fact, it (and all other sharpening algorithms) almost always make the noise worse, not better. You also mentioned, "Reduce Noise". If, by this, you mean the module of the same name within PS, don't even bother to try. The NR facility in ACR is better, as are the commercial products I mentioned above.

HTH,

Tom M

View attachment 36694

you did use a mobile phone to take this image right ? man they suck in low light , even many digital cameras...

now it's the balance between noise and detail and the photo is in very low resolution..

Of course you can achieve better results than this.

It was taken with this: Sony HDRPJ260V - 16GB Full HD Camcorder 8.9mp. as i was mostly doing video, I may be able to achieve the raw file? if i can do that after it's already been saved on sd card?