Mini-Review: Trying To Get the Most out of the 7D High ISO Images

Good thread. PP makes all the difference for these cameras.

I personally start with DPP for everything but noise control then export a TIFF 16 bit file to CS5. The standard noise control in CS5 is really good.

Thinking I should postpone sharpening to after I have reduced noise though. TS, it looks way clean while retaining detail in your shots.

Canon_Lover wrote in post #12926141
Good thread. PP makes all the difference for these cameras.

I personally start with DPP for everything but noise control then export a TIFF 16 bit file to CS5. The standard noise control in CS5 is really good.

Thinking I should postpone sharpening to after I have reduced noise though. TS, it looks way clean while retaining detail in your shots.

I have used DPP since I got my 400D in 2007 and, for sure, Canon has improved it a lot. The cat example treated with DPP has not any additional NR being applied, besides the default DPP uses and, in my opinion, the result is quite good. But I wanted to emphasize the fundamental importance of NOT applying any sharpening to high ISO shots (at the very least try to apply modest amounts of it). My experience is that sharpening high ISO shots tends to increase the noise type artifacts of PP. This is the main reason my example did not require of a second NR pass. Besides, if your lens is a sharp one to begin with (such as the 100L), then the sharpening should not be a factor.
Previously, I have used both Noiseware, Dfine (as a plugin from CS3), Neatimage and other noise reduction software with good results. But nowadays, LR3.4.1 and DPP3.9 or 3.10 provide very good NR capabilities which makes the use of additional NR sort of superfluous.
An ISO12800 example (and 100% crop) shows some of this. The sample was shot with the 50D (sorry about that) with the EF-85 f1.8 lens at f5.6, 1/80 sec. The processing was with LR3.4.1 without any sharpening applied. The only NR applied was the LR tool (I think 25-25)

Miguel

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Here is an example from today. Taken with the 7D and the Tamron 28-75 f2.8, at 60mm, ISO 12800, f5.6, 1/80 sec. Processed with LR3.4.1 with 0 sharpening, NR of 65-45 and WB of 2450K +5.

Miguel

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Trying out the new 24-105, here is another example of shooting to the right +1/3, standard High NR, with DPP sharpening at 2, and then bringing the exposure down just a bit, then a bit of cleanup in CS3, color channel by color channel. This is how I get the best results, each color channel has a different characteristic, so I adjust each one separately. This takes longer than just to use a NR action, but the results are better.

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Okay, here is something that I really haven't tried before, and I would like somebody else to try this. I thought to myself "self, what is the fastest way to get an ISO 12800 shot out and how bad would it really look?".

So this is what I tried. I first set high ISO NR to STRONG. I then created a new picture style that made up for the fact that saturation/DR gets reduced the farther up the ISO tree you go. The style has saturation bumped up, along with sharpening set to notch 3. I set EC to +1/3. I took the JPG and cleaned up levels, and sharpened a bit more, nothing more, no more NR than what the camera did.

This was quite, quite dark, btw. I would not have expected this kind of a result. I am not saying it is great, but it is unexpected, I expected a much worse result with STRONG NR, along with a more aggressive picture style.

First here is what the scene looked like.

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The results, and a partial crop...

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If I take the resulting JPG and actually work on it a bit, I get these results, the web sized doesn't show much difference really, but the partical crop shows the cleanup wasn't too bad, just a run of Noiseware on it, Smart Sharpen, and a tweaking of levels.

So it would appear that if you are in a crunch, you could set up one of the Cx modes as "High ISO", and you set up the picture style, EC, and High ISO NR to Strong. Remember that I did nothing out of the ordinary or staged. I set up a picture style, I set HINR to Strong, EC to +1/3, metering to Center Weighted Eval, and snapped a shot. A bit of Noiseware, and tweaking of saturation and sharpness....

Just wanted to see if anyone else can reproduce this scenario quickly and whether you get the same basic results.

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TeamSpeed wrote in post #12930646
Trying out the new 24-105, here is another example of shooting to the right +1/3, standard High NR, with DPP sharpening at 2, and then bringing the exposure down just a bit, then a bit of cleanup in CS3, color channel by color channel. This is how I get the best results, each color channel has a different characteristic, so I adjust each one separately. This takes longer than just to use a NR action, but the results are better.

Dear Team. Would it be possible to get some of your example files in RAW, so as to apply my approach to them to see if we get something different?. I could make available my RAW files in return.

Miguel

Very interesting thread Teamspeed,keep em coming..

paparios wrote in post #12952994
Dear Team. Would it be possible to get some of your example files in RAW, so as to apply my approach to them to see if we get something different?. I could make available my RAW files in return.

Miguel

Once I get back from Toronto, I should be able to. This weekend maybe.

paparios,
your shot is under exposed.
if you push your exposure at least 1/2 stop (in camera) - your shot and noise will be better controlled.

this is even before you get to HTTR.

personally been using LR for the last 3 years for wedding work and personal stuff.
LR3 is at the point where i did not need a third party noise reduction.

paparios wrote in post #12922016
Finally, I used Lightroom 3.4.1 to process the file. This has a somewhat different white balance to DPP (it is difficult to equalize this) and the main thing is that it has no sharpening and the noise reduction applied is 45-45.

Miguel

noise reduction applied is 45-45.

Is that 45 for luminace NR and 45 for color NR? Do you adjust the detail and contrast sliders in lightroom under the NR settings?

Thanks

Very interesting and useful stuff. Keep it coming, everyone.

FWIW, there is a thread somewhere here (in the PP forum) documenting that in LR3, if you slide the sharpening details slider all the way up, you get the same algorithms as Smart Sharpen in PS. I assume that the same functionality is available in ACR.

The ability to take advantage of in-camera settings in DPP is interesting, although it would greatly increase my workflow since I am not willing to give up the database functions of LR. However, it has me thiniking (no small feat). Does DPP have a sharpening-mask function like the one in LR? This is great to avoid sharpening residual noise.

pknight wrote in post #12956295
Does DPP have a sharpening-mask function like the one in LR?

No. Unfortunately, sharpening is global in DPP.

match14 wrote in post #12956250
noise reduction applied is 45-45.

Is that 45 for luminace NR and 45 for color NR? Do you adjust the detail and contrast sliders in lightroom under the NR settings?

Thanks

Yes for the first question. I do not have a definite answer to the color setting, since the LR default for that parameter (25) is also very good. Regarding the second question, I use the default values (0 for contrast and 50 for detail).

Miguel