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).
https://www.dropbox.com …pqgs5rr/IMG_4859.CR2?dl=0
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
