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

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/___sbsstatic___/migration-images/126/12613196-1.jpg
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/___sbsstatic___/migration-images/126/12613196-2.jpg
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/___sbsstatic___/migration-images/126/12613196-3.jpg
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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.
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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.
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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:
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Here are the steps I'm using:
               color and luminance noise reduction
Export with these settings:
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    Lighroom screen--------------------------------------------------------Jpeg export
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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...

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 only on shadows

Would be great if we had noise reduction adjustable only on shadows in camera raw & LR ?

Yes. But it would be better if we had an easy way to select only shadows, so we could then apply any changes to them (noise reduction, color, tone, ... ).
Ditto for highlights, and all the dark blue stuff, and all the ... stuff.
Nik software supports this via U-points, and I hope Adobe invents a similiar auto-masking technology that blows U-points out of the water .
Cheers,
Rob

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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

LR4 Adjustment Brushes ... Possible Bug?

If I proceed to edit a Nikon NEF image in LR4 using the Adjustment Brushes (doesn't matter which one(s)) ... and then proceed to further edit the image in Photoshop CS5 ... the areas in which I've applied brush strokes do not carry over to PS correctly. Basically, anywhere there is a Brush Stroke ... it looks like I've gone crazy with the Dodge tool.
I do not remember this being an issue in LR3.

When you edit in Photoshop, you should get the compatibility warning for camera raw. Do you select "Render in Lightroom" or "Open anyway"?
If you check the "don't show" option on that warning, you may then lock in use of the incompatible version of camera raw.
PS - I've just tried it, and I reckon this might be your problem. If you edit in CS5 and choose "Open anyway" then adjustment brush work is lost, if you chose "Render in Lightroom" then the adjustments go through to CS5.
If you've previously chosen "Open anyway" and checked "don't show again" then try Edit menu, Preferences, General tab and click "Reset all warning dialogs".

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!

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

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