Noise in my blacks!

[crumpasaurus]

Hi guys -
I've been working on these photos for a blog post and am having trouble with my blacks. The photos are only 422x281px in the blog and look fine on my nice calibrated monitor but when we view the blog post on our laptop screen we are seeing a lot of noise in the blacks! I've attached a version with a brighter curve on it as well where I start to see it on my calibrated monitor.
I've tried just blurring it away using several filters and combinations thereof but then they just block up and get all yucky looking.. have also tried the basic noise removal tools.
My next step will be retouching them at a higher resolution using the screen we are seeing the noise on and watching it all that way but if someone has suggestions for a good method of getting rid of it in the smaller files I would love to hear em!
Thanks!

[andrewrodney]

IF your web browser isn’t color managed (only three are and that’s a recent change from just 2), then it is difficult to say if the noise and other color appearance issues are that or something else. IF you don’t see this in Photoshop (a color managed app), it is probably not in your document. It probably is a preview issue with the web browser.

[Tony W]

As Andrew says if you do not see problems in PS then it is likely that it is being introduced elsewhere. However if you have to put up with it...

Instead of blurring etc have you tried a Selective Color adjustment layer?

It may help to disguise noise issues. In this case I took the lighter image and added a Selective Color layer and using blacks only increased by around 10%

[John Wheeler]

Good suggestions by Andrew and Tony

Assuming that this is in the PS file, then bringing it in through ACR and using their noise reduction tools (assuming CS5) do a pretty good job. The major issue is that the edges end up with a little more blur and given the low resolution, the amount of work to recover those edges may be more work than going back and doing this at the higher resolution image.

Many browsers are not color managed and even the ones that are are not necessarily run on a calibrated and profiled monitors. My guess is that many monitors are cranked up a lot higher in brightness than the conditions in which you made your adjustments in PS. IMHO simulating your customers environment is a tough thing to do yet should include both increasing and decreasing the brightness (best through adjustment layers and not messing with your monitor settings ). It often is "revealing" what might be seen by your customers.

[crumpasaurus]

Thanks for the ideas guys! Very helpful.. I think for these unfortunately I'm just going to have to re-do them at a higher resolution but I'm definitely going to be doing brighter/darker layers when I know i'm doing stuff for web from now on!!