Noise Problem

I've recently taken to scanning film negatives and prints and I run into the same problem--noise. THe sky is of particular concern. Can someone suggest a way of eliminating noise in the sky without sacrificing detail and sharpness in the primary subject? Something in layers perhaps?

I also seem to be having some difficulty with contrast. Do these images seem too contrasty to you?

Anything you might have to suggest on these matters--or any others for that matter--would be greatly appreciated.

Sorry, no EXIF data. But the image was scanned from a 4X 6 print on an HP 8200 scanner @ a resolution of 600. PP in CS2.

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I do not know anything about your noise question but I love the B&W version of this picture.

Dave

Take a look at Noise Ninja program, not too costly and is effective once profiled correctly.
http://www.picturecode​.com/

The images are a little too contrasty, the sky is nice as is the main subject.. but for me the house in the background is a little too blocked out in black, the roof area has no visible details and the leaves in the tree to the left.
You could use shadow and highlights in PS but this will bring the noise up again altough a layer mask and using Noise Ninja could settle this back again.

Can you please post a 100% crop of an area that you have concerns with?

I use Neat Image, another noise removal plug-in for PS (there is also a stand alone app for PC - I use a Mac and the plug in works well and has built-in multi-processor support). Neat Image will allow you to develop a profile for your scanner (if the scanner is the source of any noise) and also auto-profile the noise in your image and allow you to save that profile.

Thanks

Kirk

kirkt wrote in post #5871755
Can you please post a 100% crop of an area that you have concerns with?

I use Neat Image, another noise removal plug-in for PS (there is also a stand alone app for PC - I use a Mac and the plug in works well and has built-in multi-processor support). Neat Image will allow you to develop a profile for your scanner (if the scanner is the source of any noise) and also auto-profile the noise in your image and allow you to save that profile.

Thanks

Kirk

Kirk--

Happy to. If you look between the cross and the church wall the noise should be readily apparent. I would add that the noise, loss of detail, and the contrast issues are all associated with the scanning. The original is clean. Perhaps it's something to do with the scan settings? It would definitely be nice to get this straightened out. It took me quite a while in PP to get this knocked into the very rough shape you can see in the initial examples. I definitely appreciate any guidance you can offer.

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Thanks - I hate to be a pain, but can you post the same 100% crop in color - i.e., the original scan, no PP. I'm guessing that any noise or artifact in the color image, however processed, may be accentuated in your conversion to high-contrast B&W. Neat Image managed to knock out most of the sky noise in the low-res color image, but I'd like to try at full res before I post some experimental results.

Also, have you tried scanning at different resolutions (frequencies?). Try a few different scan resolutions and see what you get. Also, is there any Auto-whatever turned on in your scanner app that may be affecting the results? Turn it all off and see what happens.

Kirk

PETERSYMES wrote in post #5870766
Take a look at Noise Ninja program, not too costly and is effective once profiled correctly.
http://www.picturecode​.com/

The images are a little too contrasty, the sky is nice as is the main subject.. but for me the house in the background is a little too blocked out in black, the roof area has no visible details and the leaves in the tree to the left.
You could use shadow and highlights in PS but this will bring the noise up again altough a layer mask and using Noise Ninja could settle this back again.

Peter--

Yes, contrasty. The image out of the scanner was so contrasty that I was bending that string in Curves like a heavy metal guitarist and I still couldn't make something reasonable of it. After reading your post, I tried a LAB conversion and added a duplicate layer in screen mode, dropped the opacity, and I had more detail in the roof of the house and the trees, not bad actually, but the noise was so bad it looked more like an impressionist painting than a photograph. That ninja would have to work miracles

Question, is the profiling proceedure in Noise Ninja based on objective measurements, like as in a display colorimeter? Or is it based more on experience/judgment call settings like with Adobe Gamma? Does this question make any sense? Whay can't I write a declarative sentence?

Also - with respect to the original image - if you can provide a link to download it without compression, that would be ideal, as we don;t want auto compression affecting the existing artifacts in the scanned image. A TIFF for example.

Oh? I think I just heard a nerd alert siren....

Walkingmanblues wrote in post #5873661
Peter--

Yes, contrasty. The image out of the scanner was so contrasty that I was bending that string in Curves like a heavy metal guitarist and I still couldn't make something reasonable of it. After reading your post, I tried a LAB conversion and added a duplicate layer in screen mode, dropped the opacity, and I had more detail in the roof of the house and the trees, not bad actually, but the noise was so bad it looked more like an impressionist painting than a photograph. That ninja would have to work miracles

Question, is the profiling proceedure in Noise Ninja based on objective measurements, like as in a display colorimeter? Or is it based more on experience/judgment call settings like with Adobe Gamma? Does this question make any sense? Whay can't I write a declarative sentence?

Sentence appears OK to me.

Firstly i don't use it with a scanner just the DSLR, but various scanner profiles are available.
You can also create your own custom profiles using a profile chart downloadable from the web site, this is apparently more acurate but i am happy with the default profiles for the EOS 5D
The application is available as a trial so you can check it out and uninstall if it does not cut the mustard so to speak.

kirkt wrote in post #5873660
Thanks - I hate to be a pain, but can you post the same 100% crop in color - i.e., the original scan, no PP. I'm guessing that any noise or artifact in the color image, however processed, may be accentuated in your conversion to high-contrast B&W. Neat Image managed to knock out most of the sky noise in the low-res color image, but I'd like to try at full res before I post some experimental results.

Also, have you tried scanning at different resolutions (frequencies?). Try a few different scan resolutions and see what you get. Also, is there any Auto-whatever turned on in your scanner app that may be affecting the results? Turn it all off and see what happens.

Kirk

Kirk--

This is a new scan right out of the hopper (color corrected, though). I changed the resolution to 300 and set the black and white points to match my settings in PS--20 and 244 respectively--and this does seem to be an improvement in terms of obvious, in-your-face noise, but it's still there. Of course more showed up when I converted to JPEG. What with all the noise in the original the file size was a little too large for forum constraints and I had to save at the Medium quality setting. Anyway, I'm anxious to see what you can do with it.

FYI--See my response to Peter elsewhere in this topic. I tried a LAB conversion--a little less contrasty a method of conversion--with similar results to my initial post above. Any suggestions?

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Ran this crop through Noise Ninja 2 using the default auto profile (no idea what scanner you have) and a very quick layer mask to keep detail in the stone work.may give some idea what range may be available.
No effort made to adjust contrast and pesky JPG compression will have taxed it even further.


Sorry i would know what scanner you had if i read your original post fully....

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PETERSYMES wrote in post #5873974
Ran this crop through Noise Ninja 2 using the default auto profile (no idea what scanner you have) and a very quick layer mask to keep detail in the stone work.may give some idea what range may be available.
No effort made to adjust contrast and pesky JPG compression will have taxed it even further.

Sorry i would know what scanner you had if i read your original post fully....

Peter--

Thank you! I'm impressed, and on a such a decidedly Lo-Fi image. Remarkable. I'll definitely be taking a closer look at the program. That, and a closer look at my scanner settings. And thanks again for your help.

Walkingmanblues wrote in post #5874229
Peter--

Thank you! I'm impressed, and on a such a decidedly Lo-Fi image. Remarkable. I'll definitely be taking a closer look at the program. That, and a closer look at my scanner settings. And thanks again for your help.

Glad i could help

kirkt wrote in post #5873743
Also - with respect to the original image - if you can provide a link to download it without compression, that would be ideal, as we don;t want auto compression affecting the existing artifacts in the scanned image. A TIFF for example.

Oh? I think I just heard a nerd alert siren....

And I answer the siren's call. As requested, the the full res. color scan. As I mentioned beore this one came out much better with the new scanner settings. Still needs some tweaking, but...you know...it's better.

Sorry this took so long, somehow I overlooked your amended request

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just wondering if u shot this thru a graduated nd filter? the top half of the church is darker then the bottom half. I'd try to get both halves of the building to match.