HDR Help!

Renzo · Feb 7, 2011

I have recently discovered the program photo matix and i'm having trouble creating an image that is not full of grain or noise. Took three bracketed exposures on a tripod but i'm still getting quite a bit of noise. I tried cs5 tone mapping and got similar results...

myshkin · Feb 7, 2011

Can you post the 0 exp pic your trying to make the HDR of

Renzo · Feb 7, 2011

Just a test image:

myshkin · Feb 7, 2011

are you seeing the noise while tonemapping n photomatix or also after processing it? A lot of times while tonemapping there will appear heavy noise but after processing it becomes minor.
Also have you tried other presets to see if maybe its your use of the sliders that are causing it

Renzo · Feb 7, 2011

When the program first renders the image. After I play around with the sliders I can reduce noise slightly, but the original exposures have no noise. I'm confused as to where this noise is coming from and if it is preventable. Does anyone else experience noise when first rendering the image into an hdr program? thanks!

myshkin · Feb 7, 2011

HDR is known to bring noise into images and it is one of the cons. It can be kept to a minimum and fixed.
With HDR you are taking underexposed pics in the bracket which will normally bring in noise as well. I see lots of noise while rendering especially if I look at a sky in the zoom screen or in this pics case the sofas, but after creating the HDR normally it becomes goes away or becomes very minor

Renzo · Feb 7, 2011

Ok I tried another image, strangely though this was just one picture saved at three different exposures but I think I managed to reduce some grain. Let me know what you think.

myshkin · Feb 7, 2011

I think a lot of your problems are with how you're processing it. I don't really see grain, but I see some odd things that are processing related.

My guess is you should take both the smoothing and the highlight smoothing sliders to the right