Removing "Noise" with Lightroom

One of the biggest advantages of digital cameras or DSLR’s over their film counterparts is the ability to switch ISO settings on the fly. ISO is the amount of light that you let into the camera’s sensor and in the days of film cameras this was accomplished with film speed, sometimes called ASA instead of ISO.

So if you wanted to shoot outdoors, you would load a roll of ISO or ASA 100 or 200 and be good to go, but if you then moved into a dimly lit building and wanted to shoot, you needed either a flash on that camera or you needed to have used up that roll of 100 or 200 film and switch to 400 or 800 to shoot well in those conditions.

With the advent of the digital camera, you can shoot outdoors at ISO 100, and then step indoors and with the flip of a switch or wheel, shoot at ISO 800 or even higher like 6400 or maybe even 12,800. The problem is as your ISO gets higher, you get digital “noise” in your photos. Noise is the little dots, speckles or grain look in your image that I am sure most everyone has seen at one time or another.

See the grains of noise in this image. I shot indoors at ISO 2000

 Some cameras are better at others at handling high ISO, low noise, but at some point even the best of these cameras will end up with noise in your images and it can make the image ugly and unusable. Luckily, Lightroom can help mitigate this for you and make this image useable again.

When you load your images in Lightroom and come across an image that has noise, this is how you can clean it up in the Lightroom Develop Module. The two big noise removal sliders are under the Detail section and called Luminance and Color.

After some Luminance and Color noise reduction notice the image is much cleaner

Here is what each does. Luminance: This kind of noise affects the brightness, but not the color, of individual pixels. If you had a picture of a dark grey piece of paper with a great deal of luminance noise it would appear similar to old-school television static with lots of light and dark fuzz.

Color or sometimes called Chroma noise: This shows up as oddly-colored pixels, scattered throughout an image, almost like someone has tossed a handful of red, blue, and green grains of sand at it. Lightroom calls this “Color” noise, but it’s just another term for Chroma noise.
Now, although you can remove considerable noise with Lightroom, you want to make sure you are careful not to use too much noise reduction as it can make the images look fake and give everything a plastic look. A lot of pros will counter some of the effects of the noise reduction by using some sharpening as well for the best results.

A side by side of the before on the left and after on the right.

 As you can see in my side by side before and after shot, the Lightroom noise reduction did help clean up this image a lot.

Comments/Questions

Simplicity

A lot of photographers suffer from equipment paralysis. By that I mean they buy too much gear, especially too many lenses and drag too much gear with them out in the field, then they spend all their time thinking about their gear, their settings, etc and none of their time concentrating on their images. What happens then? They end up with crappy photos over and over again, and then keep buying more gear thinking more gear will make they images better.

Next time you go out to shoot, try taking only 1 or at most 2 lenses with you. This should be all you need and you will spend more time concentrating on your images and less time thinking about your gear and your settings.

I challenge myself and the members of my camera club all the time to go out on our monthly shoots and only take one lens to do all their shooting. Move closer or further away as the case may be to get the shot and the framing you need to make that awesome image.

The weekend I went to Ian Henderson's Antique Mall, I shot with nothing but my Canon EF 50mm F/1.4 USM

There is an old analogy I learned when I was a kid called K.I.S.S (Keep It Simple Stupid). A lot of professional photographers have learned to keep their gear streamlined and that is how they become so successful. I remember reading on SLRLounge I believe it was about a year ago about one of the most successful wedding photographers in NYC. He shoots ALL of his weddings with a pair of Canon 1Dx bodies and never uses more than a EF 70-200mm F/2.8 L IS USM and an EF 135mm F/2 L USM portrait lens and this pro makes 6 to 7 figures a year shooting weddings!

When asked during the interview why he used such a small amount a gear he said, “To be honest in most cases a photographer seldom needs more than a good 70-200mm F/2.8. It’s the number one lens sold for a reason. I also use the 135mm F/2 L USM because it creates amazing portraits with fantastic bokeh, which is something the majority of brides want in their wedding photos.”

Thinking and a simplified approach to gear is why real pros can shoot with anything, even and iPhone and take amazing photos.

Comments/Questions

Photographing for your client.

One of the fun things about photographing weddings is basically the unpredictability of the day. You are never sure what kind of images you are going to be taking.

Well, you now to a certain degree. These would be the Getting Ready photographs. The Ceremony and then the Reception. The best part though is finding those gems amongst everything else that you will be photographing.

It is the constant search for the interesting guest's and the special moments that the couple will be taking when they think nobody is watching.

It is also about the beautiful formal photographs and the opportunity to make sure you get some really individual and special photographs that the couple will appreciate long after you have left.

On other occasions it is also really interesting to test your own creativity. What can you create with the model and the location that you are working in. What works well for one photograph might not always be appropriate for every other photograph in the same location.

For me finding the best photograph is not about clicking the shutter release button a million times. Rather it is about watching your client or model and knowing what you can expect when you ask them to do something. By knowing the reaction or even been able to anticipate the action you can be sure to capture the photograph you are looking for.

Do not be shy to ask questions because it is a great way to elicit some reactions from your models.

All collages created here can become some great wall art for you and your family. Just ask.

Enjoy your photography and think beyond just been the photographer. Rather think of it as the treasure maker and the collage creator or any other name that would be suitable for your chosen genre of photography.

Have a great day.

Denzil