Looking for some help with picture clarity

[SadlerX]

Hi, I am looking for some help attaining a better image than a good portion of the most recent I shot on my new Nikon z50ii. It takes great photos but when I try to denoise them in lightroom with adaptive color on I am getting a smudged look and hard facial lines. Only on some, others with all the same settings look great. Any Tips?

 

[wfooshee]

Well, denoise basically works by sort of "smudging."

I don't use Lightroom, though, I'm a Photoshop guy. I denoise in Camera Raw using the Luminance slider under Detail.

 

[PhotoHobbyist]

I'm a newbie, but I've found Wavelet Noise filter set at 85% removes a lot of noise without noticeably smudging.

 

[407370]

My tip would be not to shoot into the sun, try and get sunlight on your back.

I had a wee go at selecting the people and doing a bit of dodge / Burn / Brighten / Denoise in Affinity photo:

Forum wont let me upload a bigger image?????

Its a bit different to yours but better or worse is in the eye of the beholder.

CHEERS
JBO

 

[SadlerX]

My tip would be not to shoot into the sun, try and get sunlight on your back.

I had a wee go at selecting the people and doing a bit of dodge / Burn / Brighten / Denoise in Affinity photo:

View attachment 288994

Forum wont let me upload a bigger image?????

Its a bit different to yours but better or worse is in the eye of the beholder.

CHEERS
JBO

If I have to shoot into the sun due to what side of the field I'm allowed on, is there a filter or anything to help?

 

[MartinCrabtree]

Circular polarizer should help. But there's no eliminating that issue. Some lenses work better into the light than others. Try what ya got and see if one works better.

 

[407370]

Backlit subjects will always appear darker than surroundings. I assume Lightroom has a selection function so you can select a bit of the photo to independently edit or create a mask from the selection.

 

[smoke665]

The problem you have has to do with the dynamic range of the scene and the camera's limited ability to capture said range. If you reduce the exposure to keep the background from blowing out, you underexpose the shadows. Any time you underexpose the shadows you increase noise in those areas.

To handle this scenario you have some choices. My first choice would be to limit DR by changing position so your subject isn't in shadow. My second choice would be add a flash to balance the light in the shadows. The last resort would be to expose for the highlight, and raise the shadows in Lr. To do so, use the masking features to work on background, landscape, and subject separate. Masking allows you to apply correction to specific targets not the whole image.