Getting rid of noise

[blackphnx]

Hi guys! I'm new here. I feel very lucky that i finally found this kind of forum.

My concern is that how can I remove noise from the image or reduce it. Some shots are take at high ISO and the noise is active or its obvious. I tried noise ninja but there are too many settings which confuse me. Im looking for an easy way around (if there is any).

Thanks.

[HandMadeGod]

There's the "lab color" way and a quicker way

Lab Color:
+ Image>Mode>Lab Color (Turning to lab color mode)
+ Click to the channels pallet
There will be:
*Lab
*Lightness
*a
*b
Click on the a channel and Gaussian blur it till you dont see any grey noise.
apply the same radius of blur to the b channel too by clicking on the b channel and pressing CTRL + F.
+ Image>mode>RGB Color (back to RGB)

Quick Fix:
+ Filter>Gaussion Blur (Radius depends to the noise level of the image, same like in lab color fix)
+ Edit>Fade Gaussian blur (set mode to color)

hope these helps and welcome to RP by the way

[imann08]

Fixing noise from high ISO can be troublesome. I use neat image which works very well in a lot of cases. I found Neat Image fairly easy to use so maybe you'd want to give it a try.

Getting rid of noise in LAB is probably the best way to do it. Using Surface Blur is often a better way to achieve it if you have CS2. Also, the majority of noise will be found in the yellow or blue channels depending on the colorspace you are in. Blue channels can be attacked a little harder than the others as well. If you decide to make the adjustments in LAB, they will most likely occur in the A/B channels rather than the L channel although damage will show up there in high ISO shots.

It's a difficult area that sometimes has no perfect solution. You always have to give up definition in return for elimination of noise. You have to find a middle of the road and sometimes there is no perfect middle of the road.

[mistermonday]

BlackPhnx, welcome to RP!
There are different types of noise which call for different remedies. The LAB method suggested to you above (blurring the color channels) works well for color noise. Other types of noise which affect luminance should be treated differently.
I find that noise filters like Noise Ninja and Neat Image (which is available for free) generally do a better job than the various tools in PS.
Those noise filters have a lot of options and can appear intimidating but are actually very simple, easy, and quick to learn.
Why don't you post a sample of your image and I will apply one of the noise filters and a description of the method of application of the filter.
Regards, Murray

[blackphnx]

well i tried the the quick fix but its not applicable in my photo.

ok here is one photo of my friend which is underxposed. i edit some stuff in CS2 . . . duplicate layer and then applied screen blending mode then duplicate again and applied overlay. I tried working out with the noise, but I failed. If you want the original unedited image. Just let me know.

Download Image

[mistermonday]

BlackPhnx, the file at that link is compressed in rar, and most of us can not uncompress it. Can you either uncompress it or save it as a .zip file?
You can also attach a low res version directly here by clicking the Manage Attachments button below the text window. However the size must be limited to <100KB.
Regards, Murray

[mistermonday]

BlackPhnx, for attachment 1, I used PS Filter>Reduce Noise and used the color slider to reduce the noise. For attachment 2, I used Noise Ninja which I found to remove the noise but not desaturate as much as PS did.
BTW, it appears that the tone correction you performed on the original image created color noise to the point that it has become color damage which is why you have been having such difficulty removing it. I suspect that if you took a different approach on the original image tone adjustment, your noise problem could have been significantly attenuated.
Regards, Murray

[Flora]

Hi,

blackphnx,

welcome to RP!!

I had a quick go at the picture you posted which, in my opinion:

* has too much contrast ... (parts of her hair are pure black and therefore whatever detail contained has been lost ... )

* is a bit oversaturated ...

* oversmoothed in some areas and still very noisy in others...

What I did is:

* Balanced Shadows and Highlights.

* corrected the colours

* 'balanced the noise by using Neat Image on the very noisy parts and adding a bit of noise on the oversmoothed areas.

A 'zoomed in' view in attachment 2

Very nice Murray!!!

[blackphnx]

that was awesome! how on earth did you made that??? now im getting exaggerated over this . . . i used noise ninja but im stucked and messed up with the image. dont you guys have any tutorials on this? if you guys were only here in my place, i will treat you a bunch of beers!

[blackphnx]

Originally Posted by mistermonday

BTW, it appears that the tone correction you performed on the original image created color noise to the point that it has become color damage which is why you have been having such difficulty removing it. I suspect that if you took a different approach on the original image tone adjustment, your noise problem could have been significantly attenuated.

exactly. i duplicate the layer and blend in screen mode and then flatten. duplicate again then blend in overlay. im making some sort of hight contrast and soft effect. something strong expression out of it . . .

[mistermonday]

Blackphnx, please see the attached screenshot.
Filter>PictureCode>Noise Ninja. When the dialog box comes up, hit the reset button. Next select the icon at the bottom center (looks like a Bar Graph with 3 green bars). A marquee tool will be activated. Drag it across the noisy areas and it will leave a yellow outline each place to select. In the image you will see that I selected her neck, both eyes, and some letters on the T-Shirt which are particularly noisy. Next click the Filter tab. The blur was too strong so I moved the Strength and Smoothness sliders (Luminance) down to 6 each or 8. For the color sliders, move the top two to 20 but the bottom one needs to go way down or the color noise will still show in the T-Shirt text. Click OK and you are almost done. There is still some monochrome noise left on her neck. However two or 3 simple passes with the Blur tool set to 50% opacity will fix it in about 5 seconds.

If you still have your original unedited image, you might want to try the Shadow / Highlight tool to make your initial tone adjustments instead of the Screen/Overlay blend. You may find superior results, more control, and less noise introduced.

Regards, Murray

[RAitch]

Another alternative is to create a curves adjutment layer and change the blend mode to screen... then create another one and change the blend mode to soft light (or overlay if you prefer).
** Don't adjust the curve, just click OK.

That way you won't increase your image size (by duplicating layers) and you won't have to flatten the image so you can edit/tweak later.

Also, it automatically creates a mask for you and you can easily paint with black (soft brush, low opacity) to help hide the effects in certain areas. You can also adjust the layer opacity to tweak the effect.

I never flatten my image... I often go back to tweak things I've done before.

I won't suggest a different workflow/technique since you seem to mention that this was your desired effect.


As far as the noise goes, you're probably better off trying to learn how to use the filters (neat image/noise ninja) by finding tutorials to explain the settings or following good advice on boards like this.
A quick and dirty way to do this is to create a new layer and copy the merged image into it (CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+E). Then you can apply any number of filters (including the built in PS noise reduction).
Adjust the settings and add a black layer mask to hide the effect (ALT+Click or fill with black after or CTRL+I to invert mask).
Then paint with a soft white brush in the mask where you want to remove the noise. Most of the time you'll want to apply noise reduction everywhere... but often I find myself just applying it to dark spots, skin, or bokeh backgrounds... masking makes that easy.
Most of the filters are pretty smart and help to leave detail where it should be.

Remember, there's no need to flatten your image (most of the time)

[manta1900]

...maby something like that? (tried to do as less as possible to preserve reality)

[blackphnx]

ill give a try with noise ninja again . . . i have loads of underexposed and noisy images here need to be fixed