When to do DeNoising?

[EchoingWhisper]

When should you DeNoise?

 

[MTVision]

When the picture is grainy. I have some pretty noisy pictures. They were shot at super high ISO's and were slightly underexposed so I used ACR's noise reduction on them. I think its all a matter of preference. Some people like grain or don't mind a little grain.

 

[EchoingWhisper]

I mean when during the editting workflow, before curves or saturation or white balance etc.

 

[MTVision]

Sorry!
It probably varies from person to person but.....
I only use the noise reduction in camera raw and I fix the exposure, white balance, curves, then do the noise reduction, then send it to photoshop.

 

[Overread]

Generally I reserve noise removal until pretty much the end. You won't know what noise will and won't be important/showing up till you've finished editing and since it removes/adjusts a lot of data in the shot its best to remove it later and leave all that data in for the other processes.

Furthermore if you get into proper noise removal (ie selective noise removal) chances are you'll want to flatten most of your editing layers to help simplify this stage of the workflow. Following noise removal I am them typically sharpening and then resizing (and sharpening) for final use.

 

[EchoingWhisper]

Oh... I have always DeNoise before doing anything because I thought that it will stop more noise from popping out in the end.

 

[Overread]

It might, but as far as I know it can also increase the chance of things such as banding starting to take effect - since you've removed data from the shot and then applied adjustments to those areas with less data to work with.

 

[EchoingWhisper]

It might, but as far as I know it can also increase the chance of things such as banding starting to take effect - since you've removed data from the shot and then applied adjustments to those areas with less data to work with.

What if I am using 16bit pictures?

 

[Scuba]

I know you want to do it before sharpening with unsharp mask because otherwise the "grain" will be enhanced. Other then that I am not sure if it would matter. I am sure someone will point something out though and I will say oh yeah that makes sense.

 

[Compaq]

I denoise in ACR and just before sharpening.

 

[KenC]

When should you DeNoise?

Simple - when your image works better for you after you've done it. After a while you'll get a sense of when that will be the case. It's difficult to generalize with a rule for this.

 

[EchoingWhisper]

I find my pictures (already muddy - very very very noisy P&S pict) more muddy after using DeNoising (Topaz DeNoise 5), but I still have to DeNoise in the end. When should I DeNoise? They are important pictures.

 

[Overread]

Even on 16bit files you still save de-noising till the end stages. Its as more destructive form of editing in that it removes and changes data so you want to leave that till the end so that your other process have more data to work with.

As for getting muddy shots to start with - are you exposing using the expose to the right method? That might very well help reduce the amount of noise that you are getting in your photos.

 

[MTVision]

Overread,

In one if Scott Kelby's books he says to use noise reduction inACR because it's better (I think - cant remember for sure).

It makes sense what you are saying! Now, I'm going to have change everything around! *sigh*

 

[Overread]

Hm there are reasons to perform sharpening and noise reduction in the RAW stage of processing - but normally its reffered to as capture (sharpen/noise) and its a lesser degree rather than intensive noise removal. I think I use it myself at that stage (I don't look at sharpening/noise in those tabs much) for removing colour noise.