Noise

[mj702002]

Where does it come from and how do you remove it? On the two assignments I have turned in noise has been an issue. I did read Josephs post under the "Edit my Photo" section, topic 'wedding' where he started to go into a bit of detail about it. Rather than asking there I decided to start a new post here. I personally am concentrating on learning how to use my camera first and then my editing program, so I honestly do not know a lot about it...although I have been attempting to do more in it lately!

Can you guys with knowledge - elaborate on it?

I have PSE 7 - is the "unsharp mask" the same (or similar)as noise reduction program or plug in that I saw mentioned- noise ninja?

Being that I have a Canon, I also have the "digital photo professional" program, when you shoot in raw the tool palette offers a NR/lens tab...for luminance noise reduction and for chrominance noise reduction...How do you know what noise you have?
I am sure further reading on this would be of great benefit to me, so I would greatly appreciate suggestions on a good site or book along with anything you guys would like to share!

Thanks!

[coffee]

No, unsharp mask is for sharpening an image. Sharpening will increase the amount of grain, which is a form of noise, not reduce it.

There are many ways to avoid noise, which I stated on the thread you mentioned. I normally don't use DPP for noise reduction, so I don't know how DPP handles this operation.

My best advise would be to search the Internet on how to reduce noise. You will get many different ways to do it, with many different programs. Once you find a few different programs and ways to reduce noise, I would try them out and see what you think works best. I personally have tried a few programs, and for the money and ease of use, thing Noise Ninja is worth a look. You will also have to dive into the sharpening end of things as well because they go hand in hand, and learn how to use mask layers in PS or other so that you can selective noise reduction an image if only a small area is a problem.

There is certainly a lot to it, and I certainly don't know all of it. I've taken about 5-6 months on and off to really study this issue and came up with a work flow that has worked pretty well so far. If you would like to read how my work flow works, or if others have an interest, I could take some time when time permits and write it all out. But that will take some time.

[Pat]

In cam noise reduction seems to have the reputation of being too aggressive;the concensus seems to be to avoid using it.
High end cams have fewer noise issues at higher iso's due to the larger size of their image sensors. Apparently noise is largely a result of electrical interference and/or heat generated between the individual photosites on the sensor. With larger sensors the photosites are farther apart thus reducing heat transmission/interference. So until manufacturers start using large sensors in consumer level cams, I think we're stuck with noise at elevated iso's.
Anecdotaly, I read about a guy who travelled across a desert with his cam in the trunk of his car, from which he would occassionaly remove and replace it to take pics.. When he processed his pics he found them to be extremely noisy, assumably from the heat of the trunk. It might be an idea to keep your cam in the beer cooler on those hot summer days.