Getting lots of noise - DPChallenge Forums

01/29/2007 11:07:57 AM · #1

Hello All,

I shot my first client shot this past weekend and was very pleased with the initial results until converting to jpg. I shot in RAW and did some editiing such as white balance and contrast before I converted to .jpg -After viewing my jpg images in photoshop they look very grainy. Can't figure out what's going on. They look fine until you increase the magnification to 70%-100%. I shot most of these at ISO 400 or less. Any help much appreciated.

Telehubbie

Canon EOS-40D

Sony 16-50mm f/3.5-5.6 E-mount

01/29/2007 11:44:19 AM · #2

Any samples you can post here? Were the shots underexposed and pushed up a bit in RAW? Is the noise throughout or just in the shadows? Any sharpening done in the RAW conversion, and what software used?

jmsetzler

Sony Alpha a6000

01/29/2007 12:15:03 PM · #3

Image noise results from several things, and post processing can be one of them. I typically see it when the initial capture is underexposed. If the shot is significantly underexposed, bringing it back up to par increases any existing noise in the image.

01/29/2007 12:21:31 PM · #4

Ahh, well that makes sense. Thre were adjustments made to conpensate for underexposure so that's probably it. :-(

01/29/2007 06:52:32 PM · #5

Well I went back and found some shots that weren't under or over exposed. It seems that every time I convert from RAW to jpg I get lots of noise all over my shots...not just in the shadows. I'm using Photoshop CS2 to convert. On these particular ones, I opened the RFAW file in CS2, and converted to jpg. Made no other adjustments. If I just view outside of Adobe the pics look fine. If I open Photoshop and view one of the converted jpg's then I get noise. Very frustrating! Any ideas?

quiet_observation

Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM

01/29/2007 06:57:39 PM · #6

Does the D80 have Nikon software to convert RAW files or do you have to buy this?

Maybe try a different RAW converter?

fotomann_forever

01/29/2007 07:00:57 PM · #7

Other than exposure compensation, I see noise issues a bunch when ACR tries to "rescue" the shadows in Auto. I find I get a lot less noise if I push them down a bit to where they start to clip slightly.

Nikon AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.4D

01/29/2007 07:08:23 PM · #8

Here's an example - any ideas how to correct. I'll have to look and see if any software came with it from Nikon to convert. Thanks for the tip QO

option

Nikon D200

01/29/2007 07:10:32 PM · #9

That doesn't look noisy to me...

fotomann_forever

01/29/2007 07:13:38 PM · #10

Originally posted by option:

That doesn't look noisy to me...

Me either.

Care to share a 100% crop of a problem area?

01/29/2007 07:17:52 PM · #11

Yeah it's hard to tell posting like this. You have to view the image at 70% - 100% to see the grain. Fotomann - how can I display at full 100%? Sorry fairly new to all this.

quiet_observation

Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM

01/29/2007 07:50:57 PM · #12

View the photograph at full pixels. Crop a >=800 pixel on one side chunk of the photograph where the noise is?

fotomann_forever

01/29/2007 09:08:32 PM · #13

Originally posted by quiet_observation:

View the photograph at full pixels. Crop a >=800 pixel on one side chunk of the photograph where the noise is?

Yeah, what she said. :-)

01/30/2007 08:05:56 AM · #14

Okay, here's what part of it looks like at 100%

strangeghost

Tamron SP AF 28-75mm f/2.8 XR Di for Canon

01/30/2007 08:10:49 AM · #15

What was the ISO, exposure, and aperture for this shot? What were the lighting conditions like?

strangeghost

Tamron SP AF 28-75mm f/2.8 XR Di for Canon

01/30/2007 08:12:37 AM · #16

For reference, I shot a suite of pics to test the ISO performance of my camera. You can see it here. A similar test suite of images for your cam might help to really answer performance questions.

Simms

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS

01/30/2007 08:32:42 AM · #17

I know its not a solution to your noise problem, but are these images for print? If so, dont worry about the noise issue as it wont really show up too much, and the only one who will worry about any apparent noise will be you. Dave Average Consumer will not be getting a microscope out and examining the image dot for dot.

Trust me, I used to be obsessed about noisy images, especially when I used to shoot live bands. The band would come over after the shoot and we would go through images, where I would toss a load out if I thought they were too noisy, the band would look at me like "WTF?", whereas I would zoom in to 100% and say, "you see it? there?"

Dont get too hung up on noise issues. Even when shooting weddings now I dont worry too much about cranking upto ISO-1600 as I know when it comes to printing, the noise does not show up, and even if it does, looks more like film grain than coloured ISO noise.

Canon EOS-5D Mark IV

01/30/2007 08:34:28 AM · #18

Originally posted by zeus0826:

Okay, here's what part of it looks like at 100%

I'd say at least some of the noise is from sharpening. Have you set your camera to more sharpening? or did you resize the picture?

Bear_Music

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

Sony 24-70mm F4 Vario-Tessar T* FE OSS

01/30/2007 09:01:38 AM · #19

For comparison, here's a 100% crop of an image shot with 20D, ISO 400, in-camera sharpening turned off, zero PP:

So yeah, what you have is quite a bit noisier than that. We'd need to see an untouched original to help figure out what's up.

R.

Telehubbie

Canon EOS-40D

01/30/2007 09:03:18 AM · #20

Just a thought as I only have CS1 and had to download a camera-specific patch to use RAW (which I rarely use btw), is CS2 set to your specific camera? Just wondering since you say they look fine outside of Photoshop, it's just in the conversion to jpeg that you get the noise. For instance, if Photoshop is processing what it thinks is a D70 when it's really a D80 (if that's even possible, I dunno), I would think that something would get messed up along the line even though they're probably very similar.

And for John... nice set of books you have there, but I didn't see "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan. Or is that in a glass case on the mantle? ;-)

01/30/2007 10:10:59 AM · #21

Hey, thanks for all your input. The pic was resized just a little but I'm having the issues with others that haven't been resized. This particular one was shot at ISO 400, 1/160, F5.6

Mark - that was my next question. I'll quit worrying about it if the noise doesn't show up in 4x6, 5x7 or 8x10 prints. That's my main concern as these are for a client.

As far as in camera sharpening set to "on"... I haven't done that. I'll have to look and see if that's a default setting on the D80. I also haven't done any pp sharpening myself.

I have loaded the latest patch in CS2 for my D80 so that rules that out.

quiet_observation

Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM

01/30/2007 10:20:26 AM · #22

If there is a default camera setting for sharpening, it would be applied to the .jpeg output. I thought the raw output didn't include camera settings such as sharpening, white balance, saturation but maybe I'm wrong.

PHOTOKID

01/30/2007 10:31:50 AM · #23

Just a quick note that I have noticed. I bought a Sandisk Extreme III compactflash card for more memory and already owned a Extreme II Compactflash card. On a 20d anyways, I get more noise with the III than I do with the II because of the transfer rate of the buffer in the camera vs the transfer rate of the card. the buffer of the camera cannot keep up and cause noise. Is this a possiblity? Are you using a 133x(Type III) transfer flash card or the 66x(type II) flash card?

Hope this helps someone.
Rich

Bear_Music

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

Sony 24-70mm F4 Vario-Tessar T* FE OSS

01/30/2007 10:39:38 AM · #24

Originally posted by quiet_observation:

A lot of RAW converters use as the default display whatever parameters were set in the camera, so if sharpening was on, it would by default be added to the RAW image and you'd have to remove it before doing your save-as. For this reason I always shoot RAW with all my camera settings dialed down to zero or minimum. That way everything always starts off in neutral, so to speak. And I NEVER sharpen or add contrast in the RAW converter, either; I do that in CS2

R.

Simms

Canon EOS-5D Mark II