Controlling Noise in post processing and my issue with RAW images

[CaptainNapalm]

I've been shooting RAW for some time now and really do appreciate the benefits of getting more control in post processing especially when it comes to white balance adjustments. I did notice recently however that I'm having issue with noise in my RAW processed images when shooting at ISO of 800 or greater. Even at 400 there are slight issues sometimes. So I've done a comparison and in general, when shooting at higher ISOs my RAW processed images look much worse than my JPEG processed images. Below is an example of what I mean (RAW image first followed by JPEG). I programmed my camera to shoot this image in both RAW and JPEG. As you can see below, the RAW image (which was later converted to JPEG) has significantly more noise than the JPEG version. This is after trying to iron out the noise in post processing too. Now I know that when you shoot JPEG your camera automatically corrects noise for you but I always thought I could make a better (or at least comparable) correction myself. As it turns out, I can't do anything to the RAW image which would make it look as good as the JPEG. I've exhausted all the PSE 11 noise reduction tricks and still it doesn't look as good as the JPEG spat out from my D7000. The only thing I can think of is that my in-camera noise reduction does a better job at reducing noise than PSE 11 which is hard to believe. If that's the case, I don't know if I should even bother with RAW at higher ISOs, which is a shame because I like the options it gives me. Any thoughts guys? Am I missing something?

 

[tirediron]

Were these images under-exposed (or did you brighten to any degree in post)? This degree of noise seems excessive to me for that ISO & that body. Exposure increases in post can drastically increase noise. NiK's noise control software does an excellent job of reducing noise, 'though it does mean an additional cost...

 

[CaptainNapalm]

Were these images under-exposed (or did you brighten to any degree in post)? This degree of noise seems excessive to me for that ISO & that body. Exposure increases in post can drastically increase noise. NiK's noise control software does an excellent job of reducing noise, 'though it does mean an additional cost...

Yes this image was under exposed, I have brightened it up quite a bit in post processing. I have increased the: exposure, highlights, and brightness in this image in post for both the JPEG and RAW file. So what you're suggesting is that for an underexposed image, editing the RAW file (brightening it up) will result is increased noise vs the JPEG? That's not good news for me because often times I'll underexpose on purpose with my slower (long reach) lenses knowing I can brighten it up in post, but if the expense is more noise I'll have to reconsider this practice.

 

[Derrel]

Dear Captain Napalm,
You wrote, "I always thought I could make a better (or at least comparable) correction myself. As it turns out, I can't do anything to the RAW image which would make it look as good as the JPEG".

The Advice Guy says, "Shaddddup, youse!! Don't let the secret out! The Forum Townspeople might tar and feather youse, and run you outt'sta towne!" Please, good sir, edit your post and remove such (alleged) hegemonious statements, so that The Forum Townspeople will once again, welcome you into their circles and clubs, and to restore the immutable faith in the raw file, and the superiority of the image processing ability of the individual shooter over the teams of Nikon engineers who developed the cameras, metering circuits, imager processing and noise reduction algorithms, and the JPEG compression routines, and so on. Best to You, TAG.

(The above question and reply first ran in the Milwaukie Sentinel's TPF A Go-Go column, shortly after the release of the Nikon D7000 camera a couple years ago, and is presented purely as an historical document. All persons related to it were burned at the stake, and their ashes were buried in concrete.)
*******

Flash forward 18 months. Yes. I know exactly what you mean. With a bit of adjustment of the JPEG parameters, the "new Nikons", the ones with the astounding Sony sensors, and the few with the Nikon-designed sensors, have had the ability to make in-camera JPEGS that, at higher ISO levels, come off the card looking better than what many users can make from their NEFs. I'm not kidding. I noticed this first with my D2x, back in 2005 whenever Noise Reduction was needed or the light was sucky, that the in-camera JPEG processing engine Nikon developed for that camera produced very good SOOC files. JPEGS that looked MUCH ,much better than the NEFs did,and which were beyond my ability to correct to the level of the SOOC JPEG files. Now, with my D3x, I notice that my custom indoor JPEG parameters often give me SOOC JPEG files that look just about as good as the LR Export JPEG files I make after I have processed the NEFs in Lightroom. This is one of the reasons that I still almost always shoot RAW + NEF. A 24-megapixel JPEG image has so much data to start with that it can have NR run on it, and have TONS of detail. The DR the sensor can handle is astounding. The idea that SOOC JPEGS automatically suck is rooted well in the past. It's...just...not...true....with...the...newest...cameras.

My last Canon, the 5D Classic, was utterly unable to do this. It's color-blind, and the in-camera JPEGs from it almost always sucked. Some of the older, consumer-level Nikons also produced awful JPEGs. In my opinion, the "new" Nikons, with the good, new sensors, have finally gotten us to the place where the in-camera images are often better than those that all but the absolutely most-skilled shooters can produce.

 

[CaptainNapalm]

Dear Captain Napalm,
You wrote, "I always thought I could make a better (or at least comparable) correction myself. As it turns out, I can't do anything to the RAW image which would make it look as good as the JPEG".

The Advice Guy says, "Shaddddup, youse!! Don't let the secret out! The Forum Townspeople might tar and feather youse, and run you outt'sta towne!" Please, good sir, edit your post and remove such (alleged) hegemonious statements, so that The Forum Townspeople will once again, welcome you into their circles and clubs, and to restore the immutable faith in the raw file, and the superiority of the image processing ability of the individual shooter over the teams of Nikon engineers who developed the cameras, metering circuits, imager processing and noise reduction algorithms, and the JPEG compression routines, and so on. Best to You, TAG.

(The above question and reply first ran in the Milwaukie Sentinel's TPF A Go-Go column, shortly after the release of the Nikon D7000 camera a couple years ago, and is presented purely as an historical document. All persons related to it were burned at the stake, and their ashes were buried in concrete.)
*******

Flash forward 18 months. Yes. I know exactly what you mean. With a bit of adjustment of the JPEG parameters, the "new Nikons", the ones with the astounding Sony sensors, and the few with the Nikon-designed sensors, have had the ability to make in-camera JPEGS that, at higher ISO levels, come off the card looking better than what many users can make from their NEFs. I'm not kidding. I noticed this first with my D2x, back in 2005 whenever Noise Reduction was needed or the light was sucky, that the in-camera JPEG processing engine Nikon developed for that camera produced very good SOOC files. JPEGS that looked MUCH ,much better than the NEFs did,and which were beyond my ability to correct to the level of the SOOC JPEG files. Now, with my D3x, I notice that my custom indoor JPEG parameters often give me SOOC JPEG files that look just about as good as the LR Export JPEG files I make after I have processed the NEFs in Lightroom. This is one of the reasons that I still almost always shoot RAW + NEF. A 24-megapixel JPEG image has so much data to start with that it can have NR run on it, and have TONS of detail. The DR the sensor can handle is astounding. The idea that SOOC JPEGS automatically suck is rooted well in the past. It's...just...not...true....with...the...newest...cameras.

My last Canon, the 5D Classic, was utterly unable to do this. It's color-blind, and the in-camera JPEGs from it almost always sucked. Some of the older, consumer-level Nikons also produced awful JPEGs. In my opinion, the "new" Nikons, with the good, new sensors, have finally gotten us to the place where the in-camera images are often better than those that all but the absolutely most-skilled shooters can produce.

Thanks for your input Derrel that was very helpful. I guess I'll continue to shoot in both formats and if I run into these noise issues with RAW I'll resort to the JPEG as a backup. Good thing I noticed this now as I was about to change my camera shooting settings to (RAW + JPEG basic) as oppose to (RAW + JPEG fine) in order to save some space on my cards. I'll keep shooting good quality JPEGS as a backup for this purpose.

 

[Derrel]

I'd encourage you to look at the different control settings that can be applied. High ISO Noise Reduction, Long Exposure Noise Reduction, Image Sharpening, Tone Compensation, Color Space, Color Mode, and Hue adjustment are a few of the more commonly tweaked parameters for RAW + JPEG shooters. The D7000 might very well have others.

 

[kathyt]

On the Canon side, I have been so impressed with the jpeg output from my newer camera that I now am shooting more and more JPEG and RAW, and then just use the RAW format if I really need to recover highlights or fix a wonky WB issue. It has cut my editing time in half. Weddings I still shoot all RAW though.

 

[CaptainNapalm]

I'd encourage you to look at the different control settings that can be applied. High ISO Noise Reduction, Long Exposure Noise Reduction, Image Sharpening, Tone Compensation, Color Space, Color Mode, and Hue adjustment are a few of the more commonly tweaked parameters for RAW + JPEG shooters. The D7000 might very well have others.

I'm aware of all these in-camera settings, however they only affect the output of JPEG files while RAW files remain unchanged by these settings. I guess more of a reason to shoot both JPEG and RAW.

 

[CaptainNapalm]

On the Canon side, I have been so impressed with the jpeg output from my newer camera that I now am shooting more and more JPEG and RAW, and then just use the RAW format if I really need to recover highlights or fix a wonky WB issue. It has cut my editing time in half. Weddings I still shoot all RAW though.

Thank you. That's good to know.

 

[Derrel]

I'd encourage you to look at the different control settings that can be applied. High ISO Noise Reduction, Long Exposure Noise Reduction, Image Sharpening, Tone Compensation, Color Space, Color Mode, and Hue adjustment are a few of the more commonly tweaked parameters for RAW + JPEG shooters. The D7000 might very well have others.

I'm aware of all these in-camera settings, however they only affect the output of JPEG files while RAW files remain unchanged by these settings. I guess more of a reason to shoot both JPEG and RAW.

Yes, that was my (unstated) intention, to remind you that you can have a profound impact on exactly how the JPEG aspect of the RAW + JPEG files turn out. If you want High ISO noise reduction applied, you can set the level. If you are shooting on a foggy day for example, you might want to set the Tone Compensation to Normal, or High. If you're shooting on an overcast day, where the lighting is also very flat, you might also want to set the Tone Compensation to a higher-than-normal setting. At the highest ISO levels, I have set my High ISO Noise Reduction to HIGH with good results. I think the idea of shooting in sRGB mode for JPEGS that are destined for web-based/computer use makes a lot of sense at the practical level. It's what soooo many things "expect", might as well just give in.

"Some people" have alleged that Nikon "cooks" their RAW sensor data, and that NR does have an affect on the RAW files as well as the SOOC JPEG files.

The color space and color mode assignments are actually a big deal.

 

[TCampbell]

This is all about the noise reduction algorithm. The camera makers have a PRETTY GOOD IDEA of where their weaknesses are so their built-in noise reduction algorithms tend to be well-tuned to your specific model camera. Whereas external software on your computer have to be general purpose. Some of these noise-reduction algorithms are one-size-fits-all noise reduction, but some better software allows for tuning.

A while ago I picked up a noise plug-in for Photoshop (but it's also available for Lightroom and Aperture and I think there's even a stand-alone version) called Noiseware Professional (by Imagenomic) Imagenomic - Best Plugins for Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom and Apple Aperture

I use this for two reasons:

(1) Photoshop (nevermind Elements... even the full version of Photshop) is ... pretty pathetic about noise reduction. Aperture (my favorite adjustment software) was even worse. I wasn't happy with it's algorithms or lack of control.

(2) After searching for and trying various trial-apps, I settled on Noiseware. The plug-in works well and is pretty seamless. But the MAIN reason was all the control. The software will auto-analyze an image and decide what it thinks you need. If you're happy with that, great. BUT... you can tell it how noisy you think the image is, how aggressive the tool needs to be... but not just "overall" -- you can be really specific. You can tell it if you want it to go more strongly for chroma noise rather than luma noise. You can tell it there's not much noise in the highlights but a lot of noise in the shadows. I love that. Often times I want to retain the detail in my highlights (where there isn't much noise), but reduce the noise in the shadows (where there's not a lot of detail to be seen anyway.) You can also build your own custom noise profiles for YOUR camera so that you're not tweaking the settings every time you open it.

I did look at Noise Ninja -- (the other really popular plug-in) but in the end I felt that Noiseware Pro offered more control.

 

[KmH]

Does PsE 11's Camera Raw have a Sharpening/Noise Reduction panel that looks like this:

 

[CaptainNapalm]

Does PsE 11's Camera Raw have a Sharpening/Noise Reduction panel that looks like this:

Yes precisely

 

[CaptainNapalm]

This is all about the noise reduction algorithm. The camera makers have a PRETTY GOOD IDEA of where their weaknesses are so their built-in noise reduction algorithms tend to be well-tuned to your specific model camera. Whereas external software on your computer have to be general purpose. Some of these noise-reduction algorithms are one-size-fits-all noise reduction, but some better software allows for tuning.

A while ago I picked up a noise plug-in for Photoshop (but it's also available for Lightroom and Aperture and I think there's even a stand-alone version) called Noiseware Professional (by Imagenomic) Imagenomic - Best Plugins for Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom and Apple Aperture

I use this for two reasons:

(1) Photoshop (nevermind Elements... even the full version of Photshop) is ... pretty pathetic about noise reduction. Aperture (my favorite adjustment software) was even worse. I wasn't happy with it's algorithms or lack of control.

(2) After searching for and trying various trial-apps, I settled on Noiseware. The plug-in works well and is pretty seamless. But the MAIN reason was all the control. The software will auto-analyze an image and decide what it thinks you need. If you're happy with that, great. BUT... you can tell it how noisy you think the image is, how aggressive the tool needs to be... but not just "overall" -- you can be really specific. You can tell it if you want it to go more strongly for chroma noise rather than luma noise. You can tell it there's not much noise in the highlights but a lot of noise in the shadows. I love that. Often times I want to retain the detail in my highlights (where there isn't much noise), but reduce the noise in the shadows (where there's not a lot of detail to be seen anyway.) You can also build your own custom noise profiles for YOUR camera so that you're not tweaking the settings every time you open it.

I did look at Noise Ninja -- (the other really popular plug-in) but in the end I felt that Noiseware Pro offered more control.

Thanks for these options.

 

[amolitor]

In-Camera noise reduction SHOULD be better. It has access to lots more information. In theory, the camera could characterize the noise of its own specific sensor.

Ctein advocates shooting RAW+JPEG, and blending the two to reduce noise to taste: The Online Photographer: Can You Get Good ISO 6400 from an Olympus E-P1?