Sigh. Lose the noise and effect the drama, or go with it like it is?

[Mjollnir]

Wandering around some back-catalog stuff I've got, and came upon a shot of impending storm clouds way out in the middle of the San Joaquin Valley, real middle of nowhere territory.

After having screwed around with it for while, I converted it to B&W and found there's a LOT more noise the lower left frame that was visible in color, and I could likely get rid of it, but it would require a lot more reworking.  Played around with it in Silver Efex Pro 2, as well, and found the applying certain classic film types to it actually lessened the noise.  I probably went a bit heavy on the initial 'clarity' slider in LR for prep before it went into various NIK programs.

Ideas?


Rain Storm Approaches, Wasco, CA by tanngrisnir3, on Flickr

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

My suspicion is that the noise is more visible in the blue areas of the shot, as the blue channel typically has more noise.

Try applying noise reduction to the blue channel only (or predominantly) in Photoshop. Alternatively, some noise-reduction programs can work on specific colors as well.

[Mjollnir]

My suspicion is that the noise is more visible in the blue areas of the shot, as the blue channel typically has more noise.

Try applying noise reduction to the blue channel only (or predominantly) in Photoshop. Alternatively, some noise-reduction programs can work on specific colors as well.

Ah!  Great idea.  I'll try this w/Dfine, and don't know B&W enough to know which colors effect what aspects of a shot, but I can also play around w/the blue in SEP, as well.

And you're quite correct.  This shot in color is not just blue, it's BLUE, so that's where I'll start work.

Thanks for the tip about color and the suggestion!

[amolitor]

I like it fine as-is. The noise adds something good to the image, I think.

[kikashi]

I think the noise fits very well with the drama. I suspect if you smooth it away, the image will be nothing like as dramatic.

Jeremy

[RSL]

I agree. It's a picture about noise.

[Chairman Bill]

you could use Nik Silver Efex to deal with these sorts of things, specifically the film effects, applying one that mimics the sort of grain pattern found in high ISO films like Ilford Delta 3200 & Kodak T-MAX 3200. The 'noise' stops being a problem. Sort of assumes you have Silver Efex, but if you have ...

[Mjollnir]

you could use Nik Silver Efex to deal with these sorts of things, specifically the film effects, applying one that mimics the sort of grain pattern found in high ISO films like Ilford Delta 3200 & Kodak T-MAX 3200. The 'noise' stops being a problem. Sort of assumes you have Silver Efex, but if you have ...

I do, in fact, have it.

I hate to admit this, but as an adult who learned to shoot in the digital age and not before, I'd never even heard of Ilford until this morning when I saw it under the available film options.

[amolitor]

Some people see something 'wrong' and 'bad' about digital noise, and much prefer the look of film grain, for some reason.

I am one of those philistines who doesn't care I think digital noise functions in an image just like film grain, and I think it looks quite nice! At least in b&w images. Color, it can get a little ugly, especially if it plaids.

[Mjollnir]

Fixed.


Rain Storm Approaches, Wasco, CA by tanngrisnir3, on Flickr

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

Very fine now!