What is this stuff?

[mknabster]

Ok, i was using the monochrome w/ the Channel Mixer layer in CS2, and i'm starting to notice this more, there seems to be some sort of noise in the picture, or at least that's what i think it is. I tried using my noise reduction software, but it wouldn't go away. Do you see it in this picture? Is there a way i can get rid of it?

[Radtech1]

"Noise"? Did you say "Noise"?

You have chosen well.

You get a dramatically increased level of noise if you emphasize the red (as you did here) or the blue channels.

The reason for this the the Bayer Pattern of the sensor. Look at the pattern below. If you notice, 50% of the pixels are green, 25% are blue and 25% are red. So the blues and reds end up being peppered in the shot which contains the lions share of green information. By selecting either the blue or red, you are effectively discarding 75% of the information of the shot, including 75% of the luma information. As a result you get a much more pixelated look.

The method I have chosen to deal with that problem is called "Getting a 5D", which has a lot more pixels - with less weight given to each one.

Though I have not tried it, I would suppose that using an edge mask (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=48929) and a Gaussian blur on only the red channel should help.

Rad

[Robert_Lay]

With all due reverence to Rad's comments - I'm sure that he is 1000% correct in all that he said - I am personally having trouble gleaning any meaningful information out of the picture for some fairly simple reasons.

First, it's only 800 x 574 pixels, which is not a lot of resolution, and secondly, it has suffered extreme compression at the hands of Mr. JPG. So, when I look at the image at 300% in Photoshop, the pixels dominate everything. I also see what I would call posterization or mottled clumps of sameness (usually, that's due to the compression).

If it's no great trouble for you and if you want another opinion, try posting a 2"x2" full detail, 100% crop from the original color file and the same thing from the grayscale file. That would allow anyone to see the original information and also see the result of your processing.

If you choose to do that and are not sure of how to do it, instructions for doing a full detail 100% crop are at frame 37 in this thread:
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=34606&page=3

You never can tell what we might turn up!