Lightroom: Noise on exported photo?

TheStupidForeigner · May 5, 2014

I just edited a very noisy HDR photo in lightroom, I used global noise reduction, a graduated filter over the sky, and adjustment brush also on the sky also to remove more noise.

but when I export the photo a lot of the noise comes back, I tried both tiff and max quality jpeg and exactly the same result.

I never noticed this before but maybe because I am still quite a new at lightroom.

So what is going on here? Is this something that happens to all of my images and I just never noticed? Or something to do with this specific image/the way I edited it?

Here's a screenshot, left is the output tiff and right is inside lightroom:

TheStupidForeigner · May 16, 2014

I am still stuck on this problem, does anyone have any ideas? I've tried updating lightroom, tried many different settings but it seems when ever I go over a certain amount of noise reduction it takes off the extra, like there is a limit to how much reduction there can be but only on the output file.... Oh and of course I chose not to apply sharpening on export.

Any ideas???

ajandali · May 25, 2014

Hi, can you please share your export setting so I can know what is really going on.

baturn · May 25, 2014

Just a guess, but try a lesser quality jpeg.

Patriot · May 25, 2014

Maybe you have the sharpen option on for export.

dxqcanada · May 25, 2014

What version of LR is this ?

TheStupidForeigner · May 27, 2014

Ok, I've been doing a few tests exporting with different settings but still couldn't manage to get the noise level down but I did notice one thing....

When I zoom in the photo to 1:1 the noise in the export and the lightroom preview are almost identical! Then as I zoom out the difference becomes more and more obvious. I will attach screenshots of 1:1, 1:2 and fit zoom levels so you can see this. As well as all the settings I used. Hopefully this is enough information to finally get rid of this problem that is haunting me for weeks now

Lightroom version: 5.4 (also tested on 5.2)

Develop settings:
In this test I didn't change anything but noise reduction and sharpening. The noise reduction is 100 and sharpening 50. I only seem to see the problem on very noisy pictures that have A LOT of noise reduction, but of course this could just be because it is more obvious in these situations..

Export settings:
I've tried exporting as Jpeg 100 quality and 80 quality and also Tiff
I've tried resizing and also leaving it at its original size of 4320x3240
I DO NOT have sharpening for export turned on.

The problem is almost exactly the same in all exports.

Fit zoom (huge difference in noise):

1:2 zoom (medium difference):

1:1 zoom (almost no difference):

Overread · May 27, 2014

Maybe its simply the difference in the way the software is rendering the photos themselves. It could be that one program is rendering the image in a superior form whilst the other is taking more short-cuts and thus isn't showing it at its "best"