Excessive grain/noise after editing in PS CS5 RAW

[avz10]

I have a Canon EOS 450D and started taking photos in RAW and edited the photos afterwards with the PS RAW editing function. Often, the result on the "RAW screen" is good enough and I do not open PS CS5.

The following happened (I edited nearly 100 photos like this, but printing them was a disaster!)

Image during editing in RAW:

Settings:

Setting under image in RAW:

Printing photo- a scan:

Watching the photo for the first time in PS:

What went wrong? Did I sharpen too much and if so, why did the picture still showed very nice on the "RAW" image?

The size of most of the photos are more than 10 MB.

I hope someone can help.

 

[jgooz]

just my own observations but it looks like you just went thru and pushed up yer fill, brightness, contrast, clarity (which i rarely if EVER mess with), vibrance and sharpening. which of course if you take any perfectly good picture (although it seems perhaps it was just a little underexposed) and do all that to it then the end product will certainly look like your results.

aside from composition and the need for a little fill light it appears to have been a good photo.

 

[jgooz]

and theres always the printer that could be arguing with your colors but i dunno

 

[KmH]

At 119 for the Amount of sharpening, you went way to far for a radius of 1.0, and detail of 78.
What bit-depth, color space, and Sharpen For settings do you have ACR set to? (Click on the blue writing in the middle at the bottom of the screen)

Be sure 'Preview' is turned on in ACR.

Sharpening is best done in 2 or 3 stages, with capture sharpening being done in ACR (I rarely exceed an amount of 50), and local and/or final sharpening being done in Photoshop using one of the Photoshop Sharpening filters (like USM. Un-Sharp Mask) on a layer specifically used for sharpening.

I recommend you get a couple of books;

Real World Image Sharpening with Adobe Photoshop, Camera Raw, and Lightroom (2nd Edition)

Real World Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS5

 

[table1349]

A good quick read to help you get stated before you tackle KmH's excellent book recommendations: Sharpening 101

 

[jgooz]

hey that raw book you linked kmh looks like a good investment, thanks for the link. im thinkin im gonna order one. i know i have alot to learn still

 

[avz10]

At 119 for the Amount of sharpening, you went way to far for a radius of 1.0, and detail of 78.
What bit-depth, color space, and Sharpen For settings do you have ACR set to? (Click on the blue writing in the middle at the bottom of the screen)

Be sure 'Preview' is turned on in ACR.

Yes it is

I attach more photos- it seems as if the sharpening is really the culprit!

This is the same picture at 119 sharpening viewed with Irfanview:

A series of new pictures:

At 119 sharpening:

At 25 sharpening:

In Photoshop, at 119

In PS at 25

Irfanview at 119 sharpening:

 

[Judobreaker]

Seems to me you have a problem in your ACR.
The images you posted of 119 and 25 sharpness in ACR are virtually the same (apart from a few jpg artifacts ).
The Photoshop versions you posted have a huge difference though which isn't surprising at such a sharpness difference.
I suggest you look into your ACR settings a bit as the preview may be on but it doesn't look like it is...

 

[avz10]

Hi Judobreaker

Tanks for your comments!

The images you posted of 119 and 25 sharpness in ACR are virtually the same (apart from a few jpg artifacts ).

Yes, I agree- no sharpening will probably be needed there.

The Photoshop versions you posted have a huge difference though which isn't surprising at such a sharpness difference.

What bothers me is that the images in Irfanview are actually quite good, despite the huge sharpness.

I suggest you look into your ACR settings a bit as the preview may be on but it doesn't look like it is...

This is where I need help. I will post all the settings, but I am not sure where to look for them!!

Thanks again

Albie

 

[KmH]

This is where I need help. I will post all the settings, but I am not sure where to look for them!!

Thanks again

Albie

Which is why I recommended the Camera Raw book. Plus you will learn about a lot of other functions and features that Camera Raw has.

Irfanview, and all other Raw converters, use somewhat different algorithms to render an edit, so they all look different from each other.

 

[avz10]

Thank you for all the replies.

I am studying as hard as I can, but there is so much!

What is the best programme in your opinion to view edited photos especially to see how close they will be to printed gloss photos?

 

[KmH]

What is the best programme in your opinion to view edited photos especially to see how close they will be to printed gloss photos?

Like most things, just take the learning one step at a time.


That requires an application, like Photoshop CS5, that can soft-proof.

A computer display is back lit, while a print is front lit. Additionally, there are different types of computer display, each having a distinct range of accurate viewing angles.
the 3 main types of computer display are Twisted Nematic (TN, and the least expensive), Parallel Vertical Alignment (PVA, next more expensive), and In-Plane Switching (IPS). IPS type displays are the type most desired for image editing.

Computer displays age and gradually change how they render colors. Consequently, the computer display needs to be calibrated periodically. I re-calibrate on a lunar cycle every new moon, so I re-calibrate 13 times a year.

In addition, soft-proofing requires the ICC profile for the printer and paper the print will be made on. Online print labs have their printer/paper ICC profiles available for download. Someone doing their own printing would need to profile their printer/paper to generate the most accurate ICC profile for their printer.

Computer display calibration is done using a colorimeter and it's associated software. Many of the online print labs recommend the X-Rite i1Display 2 Color Calibrator for LCD, CRT, and Laptop Displays

Profiling a printer/scanner/projector requires a spectrophotometer, and a spectrophotometer can also calibrate a computer display; ColorMunki Photo - Monitor, Printer & Projector Profiler

You will find some applicable tutorials here: Tutorials on Color Management & Printing