Advice on how to reduce/remove some high ISO noise from pic...?

theMusicMan

theMusicMan

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Hey All

After some advice here if I may please. I took several photo's of a rugby game this last weekend, and because of the dull conditions and taking sports shots, coupled with a 1.4x teleconverter, I had to use a high ISO which inevitably increased noise in the images.

I have been asked for some prints, only small ones (7"x5") so it's not too bad, but having not done this before, I and am wondering if there's a way using Photoshop (or other application) that I can use to remove some of the noise from the images...?

Any advice greatly appreciated, thanks all.
 
A typical sample image would help enormously. :)
 
Try Noiseware Community... its free and does the trick... but like all SW it will knobble details so NR on a different layer and selective mask the bits you want to keep
 
or if you use lightroom you can slide the colour noise slider right up and it removes it.. if its that you can see.
 
CT said:
A typical sample image would help enormously. :)
Click to expand...

Sure, sorry CT - should have posted this originally...

It's only the reduced web jpg version, and I still have the full raw image to work with of course. I have Photoshop and have played with the noise reduction filter but it doesn't seem to be having any real effect!

p69912942.jpg
 
If you want to throw a few pounds at the problem then try noise ninja. It's available as stand alone or plugin version and can be downloaded from here: http://www.picturecode.com/

I went for the home bundle plugin version, you can download and try before buying.
 
The lack of punch bugs me more than the visible noise in this shot. The noise will look it's worst at 1:1 size, and it may well not be any problem at all by the time you've condensed all the detail in your original file down to a 7X5 print size.

I don't think this looks unacceptable at all but I've run a NR filter called 'edge preserving smooth' just on the background using a feathered freehand mask. You can probably see the slight smoothing effect it's had on the foliage. It would certainly have that effect on the faces and the figures too if you used it on the whole image.

There are loads of NR programmes you can download, some of them free, and I've yet to find one which I'd use on the whole image which wouldn't give that plasticky smooth look.

I've upped the contrast a tad and given it a little USM. :)
p69912942.jpg
 
WOW - heck of an improvement CT, thanks. I shall try that on the main image. Is 'edge preserving smooth' in CS2...?

I agree about the lack of punch... I did take another better one, but someone threw a football into the frame that I only spotted when I uploaded the images to Lightroom...

p462141282.jpg
 
Assuming you're printing from the full size image, you'll will not see any noise at 7x5
 
You could try cloning out/removing the football by using the original as the source.
 
Edge Preserving Smooth is a filter in Paint Shop Pro I've taken to using on backgrounds. In all honestly I'm not sure it's any better or worse than any other solution - just handy for me as it's the package I use anyway. You can download a trial version of PSP if you like, but in all honesty I don't think you'll have a noise issue at those print sizes. :)
 
Yep - should be really easy to get rid of the football by cloning the background from the other pic.
 
Okay, I layered the second photo on top of the first and then used the eraser on the top layer to remove the ball.

p699129421.jpg
 
Easiest way probably and good job that man! (y)
 
Thought it would be easier than trying to align the source with the clone stamp tool. :)
 
Freeking heck (am I allowed to say that without getting banned???) - that's awesome zeroeseight.(y)

Can I PM ya...?
 
Hey zeroeseight - your PM Inbox is full and I can't send you a PM....?
 
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