Noise in point-and-shoot

[Sydkid]

Any ideas for lowering noise in a Canon point-and-shoot? Seems to happen indoors and out. I can get a crisp subject, but the background has way too much noise. Its disappointing. Could this just be an artifact of a point-and-shoot camera?

 

[Overread]

What editing program do you have access to?
You can try selecting the background only and running noise removal on it to reduce this effect - Point and shooters are more noisy than upped end cameras, though you could be able to save many shots if it just the background suffering.

A program like photoshop elements or paintshop pro will help a lot

 

[Bifurcator]

Any ideas for lowering noise in a Canon point-and-shoot? Seems to happen indoors and out. I can get a crisp subject, but the background has way too much noise. Its disappointing. Could this just be an artifact of a point-and-shoot camera?

Use manually set ISO and always leave it on the lowest setting!

I currently shoot with a bridge camera which is about the same chip as most P&Ss and that's really you're only option.

 

[manaheim]

Can you post an example?

Also be aware, underexposure will cause noise... so if your subject is bright and the background is dark, there you go...

 

[Joves]

To fix it try Noise Ninja or one of the many other noise programs. Gimp might even have a noise reduction program. But with P&S cameras if you go higher ISO (over400 ususally) you will have noise.

 

[PhotosByAndy]

P&S cameras have smaller sensors therefore the photosites are closer which causes more noise almost by definition. To avoid/minimize noise with these, shoot at the lowest iso possible and also make sure you are not underexposing the image at all.

 

[Call_me_Tom]

Noiseware

 

[Bifurcator]

Here's what you get with either Noise Ninja or Noisware Professional:

These are a 50% scale of the RAW and no other processing was applied except the Noise Ninja and the Noiseware Pro on the end two. Click for the 100% unscaled images:

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For me removing noise from a 400 or 800 ISO image kills too much detail and makes everything look muddy. I use both noise Ninja and Noiseware but on 64/100 ISO images where editing brought out a tiny bit of noise that needs to be removed. In an 800 or 400 ISO image mostly there's too much noise to start with and so removing it messes up the image too much. Keep in mind that this is only true for P&S and bridge cameras. Most dSLRs (especially newer ones) have a 800 ISO that looks like a 100 ISO on a bridge camera or P&S.

In a person's face, people or animal hair, leaves or other foliage detail, texture details of just about anything, this detail obliteration that happens as a result of 400/800 (or above) ISO noise removal can often (usually even) ruin a photograph IMO.