Removing noise from photo

[Gerald McClaren]

This photo is very, very noisy, I would like to know how I can remove most of the noise. I had just bought Neat Image v5 Pro+ Edition plug-in. for photoshop.

Gerald McClaren

[Kraellin]

hi gerald,

neat image shld help a lot. i dont use it any more because psp's digital camera noise removal does a good job with a simpler interface, but that's just my preference.

but before i did the noise removal i ran a curves on the image. this restored some more natural colors.

after that i ran the noise removal, set mostly for small particles with a little sharpening added.

after that i ran a lighten/darken brush on the man's face to bring him out of the shadows more. not much, just a bit. i also darkened the background for better contrast.

and then i made some new, blank layers and did some airbrushing. this was to smooth out the noise removal a bit and also just some of the stuff in the image. a lot of this was on the faces but some on the dress to tone down the brightness.

nice looking couple, but get the guy to smile next time

[chillin]

Neat Image will do it. I applied it few times with high pass filter combinations & some selective masking with color adjustment.

[Swampy]

Also, try a Blur->Surface Blur

[Gerald McClaren]

Kraellin, nice work. Chillin, very nice job but how did you get the skin so smooth. I've been here all morning trying out different settings in Neat Image but nothing that removes most of the noise and get the skin so smooth. Chilling can you please explain in more detail what you had done. Swampy, you are talking about "blur away a color cast". I even tried the surface blur, however, the problem that I'm having is removing the blur from the eyes, lips etc that I don't to blur. I tried a mask on the lips, eyes, and hair, but it didn't look too good. The eyes and lips that were mask came out grainy on the surface.

Gerald McClaren

[HroadhogD1]

I used noiseware, with a curves adjustment. I just adjusted it with the eye droppers.

[unimatrix001]

I used noiseware for noise reduction. then a highpass filter set to 1.3 blending mode set to linear light, ran noiseware on the highpass filter then noiseware on the underlying layer and faded to 50 percent

[Kraellin]

thanks, gerald.

be just a touch wary of any noise reduction. it will tend to blur things a bit overly smooth. chillin did a nice job but you can also see what i mean in his example. and as i look at mine today, i probably didnt go far enough. somewhere inbetween chillin's and mine would be about right.

[JayNads]

For noise reduction, I convert the image to LAB, mode-LAB. Then I select the A channel from the channel palette. It will look like a bizarre, light-grey image. I run a surface blur until I don't see any noise. Then I do the same to the B channel. Finally, convert it back to RGB.

[saby]

a version by the NoiseNinja

saby

[zekeode]

PSP photo XI digital camera noise reduction:

[Daviskw]

Hi there

More trouble separating the man from the background... noiseware for the noise.

Butch

[Swampy]

Hey, Roadhog! That is excellent!

[HroadhogD1]

Thank you very much Swampy!!

[Gerald McClaren]

Jaynads,Saby, Daviskw, and HroadhogD1, very nice work. The more information the better, that way I'm arm with more ways to remove noise from a photo. I'll try that lab method too. Thanks again.

Ps. what is the difference between Ctrl + Alt + Shift + E and Shift + Ctrl + Alt +
N + E in merging layers?

Gerald McClaren

[jannikakeyes]

I just followed these on a noisy pic. I must be missing something cos when I finished it looked exactly the same. I couldn't see the noise on the grey channels so guessed. Help!

[aartist]

Kraellin's right. A smile goes a long ways.

[JohnnyQuest007]

nice smile!!! aartist!!! he should be happy about a wedding...unless he's hiding something...

[danyo]

I used Ximagic for the denoise.

[Kraellin]

hehe, nice one, aartist

[chillin]

I gave it another shot, but this time at the channels level.

[Kraellin]

i like that better, chillin. the other was overly smoothed.

[Gary]

Originally Posted by Gerald McClaren

This photo is very, very noisy, I would like to know how I can remove most of the noise. I had just bought Neat Image v5 Pro+ Edition plug-in. for photoshop.

Gerald McClaren

I used Imagenomics Noiseware, adjusted for the color cast and select curves for lighting and contrast.

Cheers!

[Gerald McClaren]

I really appreciated everyone help in restoring this photo. Thanks a lot.

Gerald Sr.

[jesterjeni]

I gave this a shot...I used the burn to draw out some detail....
I also adjusted the tones a little
far from great, but I didn't do a lot of polishing

[FractalKing]

I used to have that Imagenomics Noiseware, it really good if you have not used it yet. Man I need to to post some work on here soon. :0D

[ratpat13]

Here is my go. As far as retouching, beyond noise reduction, all i did was a color correction for shadows, highlights, and shadows. The image, because it's so soft and underexposed with so much noise, has several other problems that need to be addressed.

My results aren't all that different then some other peoples. The one thing I would say is to use noise reduction sparingly and selectively. Trying to balance noise reduction without sacrificing detail is the important part. In doing this, know that no one pass needs to take care of everything, because it usually wont. I made several passes, one light overall, another one masked for the background, one fore the skin, and another for the clothing. Some I let noise ninja generate the profile, in other situations I defined the sample points.

[tedc]

Lightroom 2 has the best noise remover

[BigDon]

Gerald,

Here is my attempt at reducing the noise. I believe the effects would be better if the file were a .TIFF or .PSD... but I hope you get the idea of what I did.

First, I ran the image through OnOne's Photo Tools 2.5 and applied the "Reduce Noise" filter 3 times. Next, I ran the "Smoother A2" filter 1 time in order to smooth out some of the skin tone blotches caused by the noise filter. Next, I ran the "Clarity" filter 2 times. This caused the photo to really pop, and brought old Willie out of the shadows!!

After running the OnOne filters, I loaded the selection back into PS and ran the Dust and Scratches filter with very low settings (2 pixels with 5 threshold if I remember correctly. That also helped blend out any of the remaining artifacts from the noise filters.

Still too much noise for my liking...just a real quick attempt. (It actually looks better on my screen in full resolution than the attached jpeg does.)

I hope this helps!