Exploring the limits of noise reduction

[arash_hazeghi]

It was late afternoon (around 8PM) when this baby came down to rest on a post, I had to crank up the ISO on 50D to 3200 to get a shot, as a result the photo is extremely noisy. I used DPP's NR (6 luminance, 20 chrominance) to get rid of the big color blotches. Then I used NeatImage to get rid of the finer grain, there was still a lot of banding left in the BG so I used PS to select BG and apply heavy Gaussian blur. I also used blur brush to touch the residual artifacts. It took about 30 min to do all this. Now the question is if it is really worth trying to salvage high ISO shots? Here is the final image

http://www.stanford.edu/~ahazeghi/Photos/birds/red-tailed%20hawk.jpg

50D + 400 f/5.6 @ f/5.6 1/320sec ISO 3200.

Do you find this photo acceptable :confused:?

[Jackie Schuknecht]

IMO you did a great job. I think the image looks great. Would never know this was shot at 3200. Maybe some of the pros could tell, but not to my eye.

[Jim Neiger]

I think the bg looks just fine. There does appear to be quite of bit of fine feather detail lost on the bird itself though.

[Roger Clark]

Arash,
I think you did a great job and it is a beautiful image. How about posting a 100% crop, say including the bird's eye and beak?

Roger

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Arash If the image is worth it time is no problem but taking that long doesn't seem reasonable.

Why don't you give Topaz a try? Gets rid of noise and doesn't affect sharpness as bad as others, they do have a thirty day trial.

[arash_hazeghi]

Here's 100% from beak and eye

http://www.stanford.edu/~ahazeghi/Photos/birds/noise.jpg

[arash_hazeghi]

Hi Arash If the image is worth it time is no problem but taking that long doesn't seem reasonable.

Why don't you give Topaz a try? Gets rid of noise and doesn't affect sharpness as bad as others, they do have a thirty day trial.

Thanks Al, I'll give it a try does it also remove banding? Have you ever tried Neat Image?

Here I processed the same photo with Topaz Denoise plugin, overall it's pretty good and feather looks cleaner but there is more detailed lost (ex. the beak area) and also the color blotches in BG have to be removed manually like the original. One advantage of NeatImage is that you can apply different amounts of NR for different frequencies and channels independently.

http://www.stanford.edu/~ahazeghi/Photos/birds/topaz.jpg

[Douglas Bolt]

Arash,

In CS4 Bridge, try setting the Detail-Color Noise Reduction (third icon from the left)-Color and Luminance slider to about 25. That will greatly reduce the color noise in the image.

[Roger Clark]

Arash,
Interesting. Is that the original? If so, I would be interested to see the same crop after noise reduction.

[Ed Cordes]

Did you change the contrast in the Topaz processed image? It does looka lot better.

[Alfred Forns]

Thanks for posting Arash !!!!

The image you posted is one tough one for any noise reducing software !!!! btw the other we have been looking at is Noiseware recommended by David Thomasson !!!

[arash_hazeghi]

Arash,
Interesting. Is that the original? If so, I would be interested to see the same crop after noise reduction.

Here is crop post NR

http://www.stanford.edu/~ahazeghi/Photos/birds/noise2.jpg

[arash_hazeghi]

Did you change the contrast in the Topaz processed image? It does looka lot better.

yup I did a small curve adjustment.

[arash_hazeghi]

Thanks for posting Arash !!!!

The image you posted is one tough one for any noise reducing software !!!! btw the other we have been looking at is Noiseware recommended by David Thomasin !!!

Agreed, it's a tough job especially since noise is luminance and has destroyed detail, I will try the other one when I get a chance!

[Andy Brown]

Agreed, it's a tough job especially since noise is luminance and has destroyed detail, I will try the other one when I get a chance!
Hi Arash,

Processing the background separately will surely help here. You might try this in Photoshop:


Roughly lasso-select the background above the fence coming all the way to the top, left and right frame edges and as close to the bird and fence as you can but no need to get too close.
Hold shift and lasso-select the background below the fence coming all the way to the left, right and bottom of the frame and close to the bird and fence above. This will add to the selection.
To add the remaining background to the selection choose the 'magic wand' tool and set the 'Tolerance' in the tool options to 10. Now shift-click all around the remaining bits between the selection and the bird/fence where you couldn't get close with the lasso. Zoom to 100% to make sure you add in everything. If you accidentally take in some of the bird/fence then just use Alt-click to subtract areas from the selection.
When you've got it all selected choose Select->Refine Edge. I often use 10/0/3/2/-5 as the settings but you should experiment as this setting is crucial to whether the edge between the bird and the background will look natural or not.

Now you've got the background selected you can go heavy on the NR knowing that the subject will not be affected. When you're done you can just do Select -> Inverse and apply a lighter level of NR to just the bird.

Enjoy!

[Gene Potter]

Some of the big guns might blast me for this, but I simply use the blur tool on BG noise after all post process. In doing so, I’ll blow the image up 200 to 500% and work around the subject, adjusting the tool size for tight areas. It’s time consuming, but works fine in my book.

[Junot Franco]

...there was still a lot of banding left in the BG so I used PS to select BG and apply heavy Gaussian blur.


Pardon my ignorance I am still in the learning process, What does BG stand for??

[Dug Threewitt]

Pardon my ignorance I am still in the learning process, What does BG stand for??
Background