Canon 6d needs lots of luminance noise reduction at all ISO settings

Hi all,
I've been trying out LR 5.4 with a new Canon 6d. I've noticed a lot of what appears to be luminance noise even with photos taken at ISO 100, this requires the "Luminance" slider in the "Noise Reduction" develop setting to be at around 80 to remove. This seems extremely high for ISO 100 photos with shutter at 1/1000 and obviously good light, I wouldn't expect to have to use any NR in this situation. Oddly, pretty much the same level of luminance NR will also clean up high ISO photos, I'd have expected to need a lot more NR on high ISO photos. Some sharpening is then required as usual.
The luminance setting of around 80 gives the photos a similar look to those from the out of camera jpeg, or the cr2 file processed in DPP.
Has anyone else observed this when processing raw file from a Canon 6d in LR? Or maybe there's a setting somewhere that I've missed?
Thanks in advance

Hi,
Thank you for replying. Hopefully there are some images attached to this post, it's the first time I've posted here...
The shots are of an area of very clear sky with the stalk of a plant in the foreground.. There is a 1:1 compare of the LR default import (right) compared to my luminance and sharpening adjustments (left). There's also a 2:1 compare to show the noise a little better. I've added a shot of the detail panel with my adjustments.
Thanks,
Paul

Similar Messages

Canon 5D2 ACR chroma/luminance noise reduction

Admitting to being somewhat lazy w/respect to experimentation, can anyone recommend chroma/luminance noise reduction settings in ACR for the 5D2, as a function of ISO?

Well, if we deal with the subject here at this level of details, then I need to add some points:
1. For the advanced digital photographer: if a lower ISO is enough for a correct exposure, but one is aiming at achieving "exposure to the right", then it is useful to turn up the ISO
i without reducing the exposure
in order to "get to the right edge".
2. Mitigating the above: the vast majority of cameras do not have true 1/3 stop ISO steps, i.e. there is no analog gain associated with the 1/3 steps; they are achieved by numeric manipulation of the nearest (lower or higher) full stop ISO result. For example from the Canons, only the 1Dxxx models support real 1/3 step ISOs.
There is no point of using these ISO steps with raw data.
3. Almost all cameras offer high ISOs, which are fake, i.e. numerical derivations of lower ISOs; in some cases they are
b not only
those characterized as "High", "Extention", etc. For example ISO 12800 and 25600 are marked as "high" with the Canon 5DMkII, but in reality already 6400 is fake.
There is no point of using these ISO steps with raw data (yes, I wrote this already).
4. The top
b useful
ISO is usually even lower. For example the graphs in http://www.panopeeper.com/Demo/Canon5DMkII_Noise.GIF show, that the loss from 1600 to 3200 with the 5DMkII is precisely one stop, i.e. there is no point to use ISO 3200 with raw data. Some other cameras can not utilize even lower ISO settings in raw (the usefulness of those settings is when recording JPEG in-camera).
Using those ineffective ISO steps causes cutting off the one stop of the dynamic range with each ISO stop.
This is an ACR forum, thus these issues are off-topic, but so much can be perhaps tolerated.

Nikon D70s + Process 2010 + Luminance Noise Reduction + Adjustment Brush = blurry picture

Please let me know if you have experienced the following and if it is a known bug:
I'm processing a very noisy Nikon D70s raw photograph with Lightroom 3: In the develop mode, I applied the 2010 process under Camera Calibration, and then set the Luminance Noise Reduction to 98 in the detail panel. At this point, the resulting improvement over the original is dramatic and the details are rather crisp given the original condition of the photo.
However, the moment I apply a local adjustment to the photo, bluriness is introduced to the photo; the bluriness affects the entire photo and not only the areas impacted by the local adjustment. This undesired effect appears with the adjustment brush and gradient and the only parameter that the local adjustment applies is an increase in the exposure by 0.01, which should normally not produce much of a visible effect.
I exported the photo to a jpeg and found the undesired effect in the jpeg file.
I believe this issue has a relation with the RAW file coming from a Nikon D70s as I performed a Sync of all the settings on RAW photos originating from a Canon 30D, and from a Canon XSi and did not see any of the undesired effect.
These steps appear to be reproduceable on any of the Nikon D70s RAW photos that I have in my catalog.
Please share some feedback.
Thanks,
Bruno

The NEF and xmp files are now available at http://drop.io/LR3BugAdjBrushNoise8736
In the current development settings, I added an adjustment brush to the ceiling with an exposure adjustment of +0.01 simply to demonstrate the issue. As soon as the adjustment is applied, bluriness can be seen and is most apparent in the faces but can also be seen on the wooden floor and everywhere else.
I also noticed that by setting the mask to show (O), ditthering can be seen in the mask even though it was applied with feather, flow and density all set to 100%.
Let me know what you think.
Bruno

Need help with the noise reduction settings

Hi,
After som experimenting I need some help with the settings for noise reduction.
I just edited and converted a few pictures from RAW (D200) til 8-bit TIFF. Opend the file up in photoshop and was shocked to see the amount of noise in the pictures. I then exported the RAW-files and did the same conversion in Capture One 3.7.3 - The result is a lot better regarding noise. In capture One I'm using the noise reduction step before "High".
Can you share your experience with the optimal settings for best noise removal ?
Thanks in advance,
fbrose

i use it once in a while, but i play around with the sliders in full screen mode and at 100% and then see what the sliders do. I don't have a definite procedure that I can suggest though.

Is there a way to apply noise reduction based on ISO value?

I shoot a lot of sports using auto ISO which means I get hundreds of images from a day with a variety of different ISO values, including all sorts of intermediate values (like ISO 280, for example). There are times when I'd like to apply LR noise reduction across the whole batch of images, but I'd like to apply it based on the ISO value of the image. For example at ISO 1250 and above, I want a particular NR Luminance value. From 640 to 1250, I want a different value. From 400-640, a different value. I know you can define some things at import time based on ISO, but that doesn't seem practical when the ISO value can be nearly anything as it would take hundreds of import profiles.
So, any ideas how to apply NR based on the ISO across a batch of images?

jfriend0 wrote:
How do "defaults" interact with a preset applied upon import? I shoot RAW and apply a preset upon import for every import I do. If I apply a preset upon import will it override the "default" anyway? If that's the case, then defaults are of no use to me.
Yes - Lightroom presets are absolute, but unlike the default settings, presets don't have to specify all the settings. If a preset setting is specified, it will blindly overwrite the previous setting, if not specified then the previous value will remain unaltered.
DevAdjust supports relative presets: final-value = present-value +/- relative-preset-value
Rob

Very neat algorithm for noise reduction for high ISO

I thought of this algorithm for the suppression of parasitic points occurring at high ISO
ISO 6400
before
http://i053.radikal.ru/1009/26/ba1c56f4837b.jpg
after
http://s56.radikal.ru/i153/1009/73/ffcdcd185821.jpg
Operation for photoshop, but for the Russian version and the English version must rename the layers ...
http://rapidshare.com/files/417172652/Noise15.atn
P.S.
Maybe it will help you to further improve noise reduction algorithms

Hi travojed !
Thank you for your message
I came to the conclusion that the high level "Median" (or "Dust&Scratches") destroys parts in this algorithm.
And it seemed to me that the best result (when the contours remain sharp) will be if, instead of a "median" using the Topaz Denoize (Raw-moderate), because Topaz protects the sharp contours in this algorithm.
Example (at full resolution - copy the address into a separate window)
(RAW 6400)
before
http://s57.radikal.ru/i157/1009/73/ec1fbac57a83.jpg
after
http://s43.radikal.ru/i101/1009/fd/c30219adfc74.jpg
P.S.
I do not recommend using a constant value "Threshold" because at different values of the ISO get different noises
travojed If you give me your example of a noisy image, I can see how best to remove the noise

Lightroom 5 no noise reduction on file export

Here are the steps I'm using:
               color and luminance noise reduction
Export with these settings:
               jpeg ( same result with tiff}
               quality 100%
               resize to fit long edge 1000 px
    Lighroom screen--------------------------------------------------------Jpeg export
Any ideas?

JimHess wrote:
I think it's unfair to refer to people who can provide reasonable answers as fanboys.
Sadly Jim, we still haven't got the kind of "ignore whiney, flamebaiting troll" button that would allow us to shut the likes of him up. No, he doesn't come here for solutions, he comes here to flame. I'm baffled why he hasn't been banned.
Torsten,
Here's my favourite workaround. You could have done it too, and it's a simple, one-step solution:
Don't pay for software without thoroughly testing it yourself first.
If you've paid for Lr 5 before destruction-testing it and keeping a close eye on the forum (where this issue has been know about for ages), you've only yourself to blame.
Adobe will fix it when they're ready and able to: but it doesn't affect me in any "I paid for this, I expect it to work" way, because I won't be buying Lr 5 until it is fixed.
A really, really, really simple, inexpensive, trouble-free way to deal with all that stress...

How do PS CS3 Noise Reduction Filters compare with dedicated third-party plug-ins?

Am I missing something by not installing a dedicated Noise Reduction application into my PS CS3? Can Neat Image, Noise Ninja, Noiseware Pro, etc. do something that the PS CS3 Noise Filters can't do? Do these third-party aplications do it better?
Since I like flashless photography, and I generally carry with me small-sensor compacts when I travel, I'm frequently confronted with the problem of digital noise. I've always wondered how the third-party noise reduction applications perform in comparison with the Photoshop Noise Filters. I hope someone in this Forum has been able to acquire direct experience on this topic and will be kind enough to share this experience with us.
Kindest Regards,
Conrad

Conrad,
ACR 4.3 has better NR (noise reduction) than previous versions and can handle NR in most normal situations. However, available light photography with a small pixel sensor may require more NR and the specialized plugins such as Noise Ninja, NeatImage, and NoiseWare Pro can do a better job. I have all three and they do an excellent job, but I currently use NoiseWare most of the time.
Here is a demonstration of NoiseWare vs ACR NR, using 100% crops of an image taken with the Nikon D200, 1/320 sec at f/2.8. The image is reasonably sharp at normal viewing conditions, but has quite a lot of luminance noise. It was rendered with ACR and the settings were exposure +0.85, brightness +60. One thing you learn early in this type of shooting is to expose to the right to reduce noise, but this may conflict with stopping action and reducing camera shake. More exposure would have helped this image, and one should try to avoid exposures requiring this amount of positive exposure adjustment.
The results are shown below, followed by some discussion. Other comments are welcome. Color noise is not prominent in this image and I left color NR at its default.
ACR, No sharpening, no NR
ACR, Luminance NR 53, no sharpening
ACR, No NR, No sharpening, NoiseWare default, no sharpening
Noise reduction and sharpening are antagonistic processes. It is important that NR is applied before sharpening--you don't want to sharpen noise. Following NR there is an inevitable loss of detail, and some sharpening is necessary to restore the detail, but this also brings back the noise. One can use masks and blend if sliders in Photoshop in both NR and sharpening to mitigate some of these effects, and Bruce Fraser discusses the details in his excellent book on sharpening.
If you use an add on such as NoiseWare, you should turn off luminance sharpening in ACR. In doing so, you lose all those nifty sharpening features that have recently been added to ACR. I leave color NR at the default. It has a minimal effect on detail.
In adjusting the NR in ACR at 100% viewing, I estimated that a luminance setting of +53 was optimal. Beyond that, blotchy artifacts appear in the image.
For NoiseWarePro, I used the default settings with no sharpening. The NR effect is dramatic, but detail is lost and some sharpening is needed. This could be applied in NoiseWare or in Photoshop, perhaps with a plugin such as PhotoKit Sharpener. Personally, I have found that PK does not work well with this type of image because it bring back noise and produces artifacts.
In all of these examples, sharpening is needed following the NR. One could try to use surface masks to keep sharpening in Photoshop with the unsharp mask away from the edges. However, I find it is difficult to get a good surface mask, and I don't take the trouble.
For now, I use the sharpening built into NoiseWare. I don't know how it works internally, but it does have a slider for detail protection, and you can play with this to get the best result. It would be best to have the robust NR of the add ons built into ACR much like NoiseNinja is built into Bibble Pro. However, this is an ACR forum and I would expect that ACR is the preferred raw converter of those who frequent this forum.
After expending this much effort on the post, I hope to get some helpful feedback.

PV2010 Color Noise Reduction Robs Dark Tones

No pun intended.
I thought at first it was the raw-conversion/de-mosaicing, but its turned out to be the color noise reduction.
Here is a the latest example of a picture that looks better in PV2003 than PV2010 no matter what I do, because of loss of clarity / contrast / dark-tones resulting from the new Color Noise Reduction algorithm. Note: This loss can not be restored using clarity or contrast sliders.
This probably ought to be a feature request: A slider that controls the coarser aspects of color noise reduction (color waves or clarity/contrast) versus the most localized aspects (color specs). In this instance, just getting rid of the specs without trying to reduce the waves might leave the dark tones(?) - Something like that. In any case, there is room to improve color noise reduction so that it leaves the dark tones / contrast / clarity in certain cases like this.
(Its a 100% crop of a section of a fish under water)
PV2003:
PV2010:
The difference is striking when viewing the whole photo from afar...
PS - I just discovered that minimizing noise reduction will maintain the dark tones better - I've therefore added down-throttling of color noise reduction to my PV2003 -> PV2010 practice.
Rob

dorin_nicolaescu wrote:
Luminosity Contrast slider also helps maintain some darker tones.
Indeed it do.
And, last but maybe (or maybe not) least, one can cheat a bit at the end and add some grain, to give the illusion of greater detail / texture. So, if you really want to preserve full detail when converting high ISO shots from PV2003 to PV2010, you need to:
1. Crank up the luminance noise reduction detail slider pretty darn high (if not all the way up).
2. Crank up the luminance noise reduction contrast slider pretty darn high (if not all the way up).
3. Minimize color noise reduction amount.
4. Crank up the color noise reduction detail slider fairly darn high (not all the way up! - color artefacts - bleh).
5. Maybe add a touch of grain (pretty darn low).
(I've left out the luminance NR amount slider and sharpening because they are the more obvious ones).
I'm guessing I'm not the first person to fall into the trap of trying to recover detail lost by noise reduction by decreasing luminance noise reduction amount and increasing sharpening detail (and maybe amount too), and winding up right back where you started - too much noise. The detail/contrast sliders of the noise reduction controls really work a lot better for that, and minimizing color noise reduction is also a hot tip for you detail junkies.
I hope I'm not the last person on this forum to realize what is now seeming sort of obvious to me, whilst everyone has a good laugh...
(I had previous just left color noise reduction and detail, plus luminance NR contrast at their defaults (I discovered the importance of the lum.NR detail slider long ago...) - but not anymore. It has helped me to articulate all this - hope it helps somebody else too..........
Rob

Noise reduction, Clarity and Masking Vs Sharpness

Maybe I have been using too much noise reduction and clarity for bird photos. Some people on dpReview recommend no noise reduction and now I am inclined to believe them. Recently I tried using little to no noise reduction, little to no Clarity, lots of sharpening and about 40% masking.This gives the bird good feather detail and anything with less detail has little noise and better bokeh. In low detail areas it looks to me like masking reduces the noise caused by Sharpening but it has less affect on the noise increased by Clarity. Is this true? If it is, in bird photography is Clarity best used sparingly and selectively like on there heads?
Another reason for asking all this is I once read that even a little masking degrades sharpness but now I doubt that. Maybe LR has improved that through the years.
Thanks,
Doug

Indeed luminance noise reduction (and to some extent color noise reduction) has a tendency to wipe out fine feather detail.
I recommend:
* lowered noise reduction, and if you do use it, crank the nr.detail slider way up - this will help maintain fine feather detail and is superior to sharpening detail for maintaining feather detail otherwise lost due to noise reduction.
* lowered sharpening detail, to keep noise down, and reduce the "need" for noise reduction.
* and sharpen masking to taste..
Also note: local sharpening at exactly -50 masks all global sharpening, and so can be used in conjunction with noise reduction to smooth the bokeh areas.
And of course you can add sharpening and/or clarity locally too.
I realize I didn't answer your exact question perfectly as asked, but I'm not sure what else to say, so..
Have fun,
Rob

Adjustment brush with exposure setting cancels noise reduction

Hello,
I just noticed the following problem:
1) Camera Raw 6.5; Bridge CS5 (4.0.5.11); Mac OS X 10.6.8; Mac Pro 3,1; Dual Quad-Core Xeon; 8GB RAM.
2) Start with a noisy raw file (mine is from a Canon 5D II).
3) Apply Noise Reduction (Luminance:30; Lum Detail:75; Lum Contrast:0; Color:25; Color Detail:50).
4) Go to Adjustment Brush and set a non-zero Exposure value.
5) Apply brush to image and notice the Noise Reduction effects disappear (noise returns).
6) Click Clear All button to clear Adjustment Brush and Noise Reduction works again.
This seems to only happen with Adjustment Brushes with a non-zero Exposure value (applying brightness or other settings don't seem to produce the problem).
Anyone else seeing this?
Thanks!

Richard (and others),
Yes, very good idea to check that. The problem does indeed get applied to the full sized, opened image as well as to the display previews. After working with this more, I now notice that I was wrong to say that the entire noise reduction is cancelled - rather it "changes", sometimes subtly, sometimes more dramatically depending on what the noise reduction settings are set to. Further, how dramatic the "changes" appear depend greatly on the preview zoom (the changes are more subtle at 100%, but it can look like the noise reduction is completely turned off at 50% and 66%).
Now I realize that the noise reduction does not ordinarily display at all preview sizes (especially smaller ones), but this is different. At preview sizes where it does normally get applied, applying an adjustment brush with any non-zero exposure value (even just +0.05) can have the appearance that the NR is completely turned off for the whole image. Simply nudging the exposure value back to zero brings all the noise reduction back.
Also, to be clearer and avoid confusion for others, the change in noise I'm seeing is not localized to just the brushed spot. Obviously if one increases exposure, you'd expect to potentially see more noise. Instead, what I'm seeing happens to the entire image, even if I simply paint a single small brush dot, say in a far corner. Having the image change globally in response to painting a small spot with the adjustment brush cannot be a correct result. Further, this does not happen with any of the other adjustment brush settings like brightness, contrast or saturation. There must be something unique about the exposure setting that perhaps introduces a new step into the processing pipeline, and this step is affecting the entire image.
In any case, the problem only seems to be an issue in somewhat extreme cases and is less noticeable at 100% (and the finally opened image). It's more just annoying when previews are generated for viewing in Bridge, for example.
I suppose one alternative might be to rob a bank and go buy one of those new 1D X's. Then maybe I wouldn't have to worry about noise anymore.
Thanks for the responses!

Base Sharpening and Noise Reduction D800/E

Has anyone set up a base sharpening and noise reduction at different ISOs for the D800/E?
I had LR all set up for my D300 and D700 so the base settings where used at import.
Now I need to do it with the D800E and was wondering what others might be using.
Thanks
Jim

Order doesn't matter in Lightroom.

How to separately control color and luminescence noise reduction?

Most of the time a little bit of Chroma noise reduction is all I need. I don't want to degrade the sharpness by applying luminescence blur unless I have to. Lightroom 3 has separate sliders. Is there a way to do this in Aperture 3?

What code do you already have for changing the color and the number of elements? Whatever it is you need to somehow tie that to being able to control it with a slider. Would this be one slider to control both properties, or a different slider dedicated to each?

Noise reduction not working on Lightroom 5.4 MAC

I have experienced that the noise reduction that I apply to my pictures is only visible in the develop area of the software. As I switch to library it disappear and the same happen if I export the picture in any kind of format.
I post a screenshot where you can see a sample picture with the desired noise reduction applied (on the right) and the same picture as it shows in the library area (on the left). Switching between this two areas (library and develop) results like a noise reduction toggle.
Dropbox - example.tiff
Is there a way to solve this bug?
Thank you.

Usually Develop-Fit view is crispier than Library or Export, when there has been enough noise-reduction added to an image to make it seem smooth, and people complain that sharpening is not being applied; however, in this situation through extreme noise-reduction settings, an artificial coarse texture has replaced the fine-grained noise which seems to manifest differently in Develop Fit view, and the complaint is that Library has no NR applied.
In more detail, there are two issues, here, both of the user's doing, not LR's:
1) A user-expectation that the Develop non-1:1 zoom is accurate regarding Detail settings. It is not. For years there has been an exclamation-point warning on the Detail settings section that says to view things only at 1:1. If a user doesn't see or ignores this warning then their expectation is wrong, as in this situation.
2) The Luminance Noise-Reduction Detail slider has been increased from the default of 50 to the maximum of 100. This has the effect of converting the fine-grain noise into a course angular texture, which is easily visible at reduced sizes except in the inaccurate Develop Fit view.
In the following side-by-side at 1:1 zoom, the lefthand panel is as per the user settings with the Lum-NR-Detail slider set to 100, while the righthand side has the Lum-NR-Detail slider set at the default of 50, with all other user settings remaining the same:
I would summarize what is occurring not as a bug but a different response of the inaccurate Develop-Fit rendering to a different coarseness of noise that is caused by an extreme setting of the Lum-NR-Detail slider. Since there is no resizing and no sharpening in the Export settings, I don't think the 1/3 bug has anything to do with anything.
It would be nice for the original poster (OP) to describe exactly what is wrong, after knowing that the Develop view is in accurate if not viewed at 1:1.

Noise reduction applied to high ISO .tif files in ACR 4.1?

Evidently ACR 4.1 applies noise reduction to high ISO raw files from Canon cameras, even when noise reduction is turned "off" in the plug-in (and this results in smeared detail). I have a 5D that I bought specifically for its lack of noise in high ISO files, and I don't want a software program forcing me into using noise reduction and ruining all those marvelous details in my high ISO raw files. Can someone tell me if there is a similar problem with ACR 4.1 if you open a .tif file with it? If not, I'm thinking I'm going to use Canon DPP 3.02 to convert my raw files to .tif, and then use ACR 4.1 to quickly adjust exposure, black point, etc., all of which is awkward and slow in DPP 3.02.
Rob

No, although ACR v4.1 does apply some baseline noise reduction to many raw files, I do not think that it applies any default NR to TIF files. Lightroom v1.1 does not apply any noise-reduction to TIF or JPG files by default, at least as far as I've noticed, so I believe this will likely carry over to ACR v4.1 as well. Of course you *can* turn the NR sliders up from zero and then it will! In any case, you'd be advised to test that theory yourself just to make sure, before designing a workflow around that assumption...

Canon 6d needs lots of luminance noise reduction at all ISO settings

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