Reducing Noise

[cce59]

Hello,
I would like some help with reducing noise in a photo shot at high ISO (1600).
This is my first photo of my new grandson, shot in a dim hallway, without a flash. I realize it will never look like a photo shot in good lighting, but was wondering if there are any tricks to make it look as good as possible. I have been playing with the reduce noise filter.
Any suggestions? (Any pointers re: taking pics in low light with my Nikon D50 and 35mm1.8 lens are also welcome!)
Thanks!
Carrie

[Juergen D]

Opening the image in Adobe Camera Raw and using its noise reduction feature seems to work pretty good. Some lighting adjustments help, too.

Juergen

[Tony W]

Hi cce59, you do not say what program you are using to reduce noise. Therefore I am assuming Photoshop!

I prefer the noise reduction in either Camera RAW (ACR) in PS or Lightroom so had a quick play there. Ideally you have shot this in RAW format and it should open automatically in PS. If not and you only have jpeg then you can bring it into ACR by using the Open As command in the file menu and selecting the file type camera raw from the drop down menu.

Once in ACR select the Sharpen and Reduce Noise tab and work there - I have not put my settings in as there is no point due to the size reduction you have made to show here.

At first sight it appears that the noise reduction has softened the image too much (it could be reduced!), however the image focus seems to be more on the babys head than the eyes. I have also adjusted luminance with a curve layer

As far as taking images always use the lowest ISO you can bearing in mind holding the camera steady etc.

EDIT: Pipped at the post by Juergen - nice job

[cce59]

Thanks everyone! I will try camera raw.

[andrewrodney]

Make sure you have Camera Raw 6 who’s NR is substantially superior to 5X (older) versions. And that you have a raw file (if it is a JPEG, the noise is baked into the data, ACR isn’t going to be too useful).

Note that depending on the camera, an ISO 1600 image can actually have LESS noise than one shot at ISO 100 (it is all about exposing for the raw data).