How do I eliminate noise when converting raw?

Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM

06/19/2006 09:55:13 PM · #1

I recently started shooting in raw and barely know how to use the raw conversion software in my cs2. I noticed without making any adjustments to my picture it shows a lot of noise. I was wondering if there is a formula out there to smooth it out before it goes into Ps.

eschelar

Canon EOS-7D

06/19/2006 10:02:12 PM · #2

Well, for starters, the 300D isn't exactly a star for noise... It's kinda mediocre... ISO 400 and up starts to show a fair bit..

This will be accentuated a fair bit when applying certain WB corrections to some pictures... I corrected a heavy yellow cast on some shots the other day and ended up with really spotty skies...

BUT... all is not lost... While your RAW converter won't help you much with noise, Neat Image or Noise Ninja are available as PS plugins...

They can work wonders!

It is of course VERY important to do it FIRST, before doing other adjustments on it, as the adjustments (especially sharpening) can amplify existing noise, AND (as kirbic pointed out), change it in such a way that it is more difficult to recognize by the Noise reduction software as actually being noise...

Neat Image must be the paid version to use the plugin I'm afraid... but it IS worth the 30 bucks!

06/19/2006 10:38:24 PM · #3

Thanks for the neat image advice eschelar. I meant to add that the noise didnâ��t show in the jpeg pictures shot on the same day, with the same iso and lighting. It's something in the raw file, (I think).

fotomann_forever

06/19/2006 10:42:22 PM · #4

In Adobe Camera Raw under the details tab are two settings for Luminance smoothing and color noise reduction... mess around with those sliders some, they can eliminate quite a bit of noise.

Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM

06/19/2006 11:08:21 PM · #5

Originally posted by fotomann_forever:

In Adobe Camera Raw under the details tab are two settings for Luminance smoothing and color noise reduction... mess around with those sliders some, they can eliminate quite a bit of noise.

Thank you that seemed to help ;)

eschelar

Canon EOS-7D

06/20/2006 03:06:24 AM · #6

wow, cool stuff.. I really gotta get CS2...

hankk

Canon EOS-5D

Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 EX Aspherical DF for Canon

06/20/2006 04:10:11 PM · #7

Originally posted by jaxed:

If its in the RAW file but not the JPG, the camera probably did the equivelant of post-processing to eliminate the noise.

Try Digital Photo Pro or RAW Shooter Essentials (or Pro) to see how those conversions work. RSP has a few sliders that affect noise and sharpening

fotomann_forever

06/20/2006 04:22:50 PM · #8

Originally posted by hankk:

More than likely, yes the camera does do some noise reduction on JPEG files. RAW are untouched, so therefore the noise must be removed in Conversion or in Post-process.

Pretty much all converters (RSE, DPP, ACR) have sliders to reduce noise. The trick is to find them and use them :-) They can't perform miracles, but can do as much or more than the in-camera JPEG noise reduction.

About my previous post about the Luminance smoothing and Color Noise Reduction sliders in ACR: I generally keep my settings at 0 for luminance smoothing and 25 for color noise reduction. For most photos this works well for me. If the photo gets a little noisy, I bump the color noise reduction to about 50 and tweak the luminance smoothing up to about 50. Luminance smoothing does wonders for noisy skies.

Azrifel

Fujifilm X100VI

06/20/2006 04:28:21 PM · #9

What I noticed when I tried the CS2 raw conversion (I don't like it so I still use Nikon Capture) was that it automatically corrects the exposure and all kind of stuff (whitebalance, brightness, shadows) by default.
So when it compensates for underexposure of the whole pic or just the shadows it might bring up noise that you will not see in the accompanying jpeg.

You can turn this off btw: In ACR hit Ctrl+U to toggle between auto adjustments and no adjustments at all.

Message edited by author 2006-06-20 16:31:46.

fotomann_forever

06/20/2006 04:35:02 PM · #10

Originally posted by Azrifel:

There is an easy fix for that:

Go into ACR, click off the auto check boxes on all the settings. Then click on the arrow beside the settings selection menu and click on Save as New Default.

I've also saved as that default other settings, such as a linear curve, because I like to do that near the end of my post-process. I don't use sharpening in conversion either.