noise?

[rbraden]

Sorry if this the wrong place to post this, but it seems right. If I am shooting with a 15 mp camera, in raw, at say 1600 iso, which would print at a huge size (ie 30" by whatever yet somewhat noisy), would the apparent noise be reduced when printing at a smaller size, say 11" by 14", or whatever?

 

[Sachphotography]

NOPE. Noise has nothing to do with printing. Also depends on the camera used. They all are different.

 

[rbraden]

Thanks,
Was a little confused on that. Didn't know if the visible noise decreased at a smaller printing size or not.

 

[tsaraleksi]

Reducing the print size will reduce the apparent noise-- an image that will appear grainy at 100% will look clean at 4x6 or even 8x10 (obviously within reason). This is why two cameras with the same noise levels at 100% but differing resolutions will have differing apparent noise at the same size print. Increasing the size of the print magnifies all of the flaws in the image, and reducing it does the reverse.

NOPE. Noise has nothing to do with printing. Also depends on the camera used. They all are different.

Noise has EVERYTHING to do with print size.

 

[rbraden]

Thanks even more. That seems to make sense to me, because it seems that the "graininess" would be reduced by reducing the print size. Just wasn't sure. That's kinda what I was hoping to hear. Now just to get a 15 mp camera (joking) .

 

[Garbz]

NOPE. Noise has nothing to do with printing. Also depends on the camera used. They all are different.

Actually this is wrong. Noise is independent on each pixel and has a Gaussian distribution around zero, so whenever you average a 2x2 grid of pixels for a reason of either reducing resolution, or say printing at twice the resolution so your eye can't actually see each pixel you effectively average the noise too. And this is essentially what happens optically with your eyes, or if you use any re-sampling algorithm except "nearest neighbour".

As tsaraleksi said the size affects ALL flaws of an image. Including say aggressive noise reduction which may make images appear a bit softer. So if you print a small image you can use more aggressive (reads: preserves less details) noise reduction.

 

[bradly]

I find that even on large interpolated sizes that there is much less noise in my prints than on-screen (Epson 2880).

 

[shmne]

Knowing your final print size and understanding how you can abuse a photo to trick people into seeing something is something that a pro does versus a newer photographer.

Because sometimes even with all of your planning things just don't go right, and the only choice is to trick the viewer into seeing things they don't. Or in this case, not seeing things.

One of the best advances digital has over film is that because of the massive sizes a photo that is actually blurry, when printed at 4x6 becomes immensely sharpened with no PP. Tack sharp isn't as needed, however obviously the better quality photo you begin with the better quality you end with, and that is a constant in life not just photography