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12/11/2004 04:38:21 PM · #1 |
I am looking for tips for noise reduction
I shoot football(soccer) matches for my local newspaper but the weather
in scotland is really dull at this time of year and more often than not I find myself having to shoot manual and turning up the ISO to 1600 to get any kind of decent shutter speed
but this combined with the dull dark weather gives a lot of noise
I have tried the Median filter but feel it blurs the image too much for printing in the paper
also downloaded a demo of noise ninja but didnt really feel it helped a lot. Any help appreciated I can post a couple of pics to let you see
just looking for some help till I can save for a Sigma 70-200 2.8 lens at £500 |
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12/11/2004 04:50:47 PM · #2 |
Which lenses do you have? Sometimes if I need to shoot sports in really low light I use my 50 1.4 and a 'zone focus' method where you use manual focus and try to capture people as they run into the focal plane. You can usually get quite acceptable results this way, if you just need one or two decent shots for the paper. Using a shorter focal length isn't much of a big deal when taking shots for a newspaper as severe cropping is tolerable on newsprint - much moreso than extreme noise in an image.
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12/11/2004 04:58:45 PM · #3 |
Shoot in RAW mode and when you convert your file in Adobe Camera RAW you have Luminance and Colour Noise reduction options. Tweak them there then use Noise Ninja. I don't know why Noise Ninja does not seem to work well for you, did you choose your Camera Profile for ISO 1600? Noise Ninja is the best thing that was invented since sliced bread IMHO. :)
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12/11/2004 05:20:45 PM · #4 |
I have the kit lens and the Canon 75-300 F4-5.6 III
I know that in the dull light they are not fast enough but I had hoped to get away with upping to 1600 but the pics are just too noisy
dont know if this is allowed but here is a pic from today
all be it one of the worst but certainly one I would like to have used
this is just cropped and the levels adjusted as it was really dark shutter speed was 1/320 and f4.5
I know the real answer is the 2.8 lens I have £250 saved but cant find a second hand for that price yet!! just have to keep saving |
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12/11/2004 05:47:12 PM · #5 |
Under tough conditions like you mention, shooting RAW is a must. The noise you have is exacerbated by the sharpening and compression introduced into making a JPG file. When you shoot RAW YOU decide how much sharpening is added, plus like I mentioned earlier you have noise reduction tools in Adobe Camera RAW. The converted file then can be noise-reduced in Noise Ninja quite easily. The lesson in all this...SHOOT RAW.
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12/11/2004 05:47:14 PM · #6 |
Just had a very quick go at it in neatimage without having access to the right profile or anything. See what you think:
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12/11/2004 06:09:00 PM · #7 |
Gina, I think you saved it! What part of the image did you select for the neatimage noise sample? In any case, very effective use of a wonderful tool!
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12/11/2004 06:15:18 PM · #8 |
Originally posted by ElGordo:
Gina, I think you saved it! What part of the image did you select for the neatimage noise sample? In any case, very effective use of a wonderful tool! |
I selected the grass. Also smoothed edges and sharped it. It would probably work better with the profile provided by neatimage, but I don't have the same camera so I had to settle for autoprofile.
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12/11/2004 06:17:46 PM · #9 |
Here's my attempt using Noise Ninja, I let the software profile the image.
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12/11/2004 06:18:15 PM · #10 |
ok I will give RAW a go next time
I have three 256mb cards so how many images would I be expected to get
using RAW ??
usually in good conditions I will shoot at the best JPG setting getting around 70 shots a card and will fill all three out of which there are always a few shots that sre out of focus and some when I have just missed the action but I like to get around 50 good shots for the paper to choose from
Incidentally I got around a dozen or so today when it was a bit brighter early in the game so I will still get the pic for the paper
but I just liked this celebration shot of our sides equaliser in the last minute
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12/11/2004 06:24:33 PM · #11 |
You'll get about 60 shots if you shoot RAW with your Rebel and the three 256 MB cards...CF cards are pretty cheap these days, you can get a 1GB card for less than $100
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12/11/2004 08:00:20 PM · #12 |
Here's my take on it.
I didn't use Noise Ninja or Neat Image.
I used a technique in PS to remove the color from the digital noise.
First you create a duplicate layer and apply whatever sharpening you want to that layer and change its blend mode to luminance.
Thenm create a duplicate layer of the layer you just sharpened and apply some Gaussian Blur to that. Enough that the color in the noise becomes blurred away. Then change the blend mode of this layer to Color.
If you want to soften the grainy structure, flatten the image, create a duplicate layer of that and use GB on it, then change the Opacity (I had pretty good results with about 15%).
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12/11/2004 10:41:06 PM · #13 |
I used Noiseware a community edition noise reduction program that is free. It works well some of the time and is extremely fast and easy. Look on the internet for NoiseWare Community Edition, it should be easy to find and download. |
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12/11/2004 10:59:41 PM · #14 |
I did this using Photoshop Elements 3's noise reduction filter.
And this are the settings I used.
Not great but it comes with PSE 3.
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12/11/2004 11:03:35 PM · #15 |
Looks like Noiseware and NeatImage provide comparable and superior results on this image. I have also tried using PS components to reduce noise and have had the best results using 'Lab Color' and blurring the channels with GB. Works ok for color noise but doesn't help luminance. These made-for-the-purpose utilities (neatimage,noiseninja,etc.)really do a great job!
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