Noise issues

[chris jordan]

Kirk, here's a suggestion, which I do to all of my images to eliminate shadow noise. First, go into the shadows at 100%, and apply the dust & scratches filter. Use a radius of 1 and a threshold of about 25 or so. You might need another pass with radius of 2; that depends on the image. With a few tries, you should be able to completely eliminate the noise in the shadows, but the whole rest of the image will be messed up too.

Make a copy of the image, and paste it back as a layer on top of the old version. Now go into the advanced blending mode, and pull the sliders on the right (the highlights) down, so that the layer is only applied in the shadows. The sliders should be on something like 50 or 60. Using the option key you can split the sliders so that they fade in.

That way, the denoised layer only applies in the shadows. Now you can go back into the shadows and fade the layer's opacity to taste. I usually fade it partially back in, so there is a tiny amount of noise, so the shadows don't look too smooth.

Then, when you sharpen, you can do the same thing-- make a copy of the sharpened layer, put it on top of the non-sharpened layer, and use the advanced blending mode sliders to pull the sharpened layer out of the shadows. That way, the small amount of noise you leave in the shadows will not get sharpened.

Does that all make some sense?

[Pete Watkins]

I'm not digital orientated in any sense, BUT when I have taken pictures in this type of lighting for scanning I've used Tungsten balanced film. This image seems to be too cold in my thinking. Don't tear me apart as I really have no interest in digital apart from creating a website.

[Kirk Gittings]

Interesting. Some good ideas to pursue. Thanks guys.

Qt, I agree about a quality scan but this is a quick turn around job. No time or money for a drum scan.

Pete, tunsten film would be a bad choice for this image as most of the interior lights are are daylight flourescent or metal halide. Daylight film is much closer, tunsten film would have made it much bluer (though this is color negative and it does not matter much either way).

[Tim Lookingbill]

That's a good one chris. I forgot about advanced blending mode. That saves me from doing my clunky selection method.

There's always a better way of accomplishing something with Photoshop if I can only remember when and where to use what method.

[chris jordan]

Yeh, that advanced blending mode is an amazing tool, one of the most power in Photoshop I think. I use it in all kinds of ways to affect only parts of an image: taking noise out of shadows; taking color (especially blue casts) out of shadows; making sure my sharpening doesn't blow any highlights; taking sharpening out of the shadows; sharpening the midtones more than the highlights and shadows, etc.

[QT Luong]

Great tip ! Let see if I understand how to sharpen without blowing the highlights with this method. Make a duplicate layer. Sharpen the duplicate layer. Double-click on the duplicate layer icon. Move the highlight slider of the duplicate layer down just a little (maybe to 240 ?). Flatten. Correct ?