How do I reduce grain in old photo?

[One4UAll]

First, I'm having trouble admitting any photo I've taken as "old," but there it is. This photo is about 30 years old, taken on Kodak negative film with a 645 format Mamiya, scanned by me on an Epson 4870 at 16 bits/pixel, about 2 years ago.

I want to reduce the grain in the sky & clouds. I'd also like to sharpen the clouds a bit. I've already searched this forum & found references to Neat Image. However, I'd prefer to use Photoshop CS (PSCS) to do this. But, if Neat Image is the way to go, I'll use it.

The grain in the attached photo may not show up, but it's there, as it is in other photos I took at this place & time. I don't think grain is a problem in the lower half of the photo, but if you disagree, I'm open to all comment and advice.

[Kraellin]

for the grain, try a selection of the cloud area only and then use the jpg artifact removal tool. it might be named differently in photoshop. this will actually add more grain, but will bust up the artifacts for the next step.

now, i use mostly paint shop pro, but i'm sure cs3 has a noise removal tool. so, that's your next step. again, just keep the clouds selected, if desired, and run the noise removal.

then, use the usm (unsharp mask) to sharpen. i used a setting of about 8/100/5 on this.

and that shld do it. your settings may differ from mine by taste or because i'm using different software, so just play around with those three items to suit (and in that order) and you shld be able to get what you want.

also, on the one i'm posting here, i didnt select out the clouds for speed's sake. so ignore the funky looking ground.

[Joeven]

I used Surface Blur with a radius of 8 and the Threshold at 7 on a copy of the background. That removed the artifacts. Used the Highpass method for a quick sharpening. Surface Blur works pretty well as long as you don't over do it.

Joe

[Gary Richardson]

Duplicated image twice.

Sharpened lower dup layer with Unsharp Mask.

Applied Neat Image to upper dup layer and applied linear gradient to mask bottom half of image (break point about level with horizon).

Merged layers, then tweaked exposure a touch with levels adj layer.

Hope that artifacts haven't returned due to having to meet file posting size limit.

[One4UAll]

Thanks to all for a quick response and good advice. I like Joeven's method, due to its effectiveness and simplicity, but I don't have the Surface Blur capability on my PSCS. (I should upgrade to CS3.) Anyway, I'll try all the other suggestions. This has been a huge problem for me.

[Joeven]

If your using CS you have Smart Blur. You can remove the noise in LAB color. It works like the Surface Blur but takes a little more work. Here is a tutorial I found that explains it.

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/re...ssage=10278201


Joe

[One4UAll]

Joe, Thanks for your time. I converted the image to LAB, but on my copy of CS, Smart Blur is grayed out.

[I remembered not all CS filters work with 16-bit images. I converted to 8-bit & Smart Blur is available.]