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Forums · Digital Imaging

How to clean this up...??

Discussion

3 replies
Posted by Jim Salge on January 21, 2007 at 10:40 PM
This is a link to a 100% crop of my image currently in ESS.

http://images20.fotki.com/v382/photos/8/843762/3280954/IMG_9003sharp100crop-vi.jpg

I like the shot, but it is noisy/soft. I did my usual processing to get it as sharp as I can, but am still not happy with this. Too Grainy/noisy...

If this was your image, where would you go from here to clean it up. I've only got CS2. Would another program help, is there a particular photoshop function that will work better than others for this?

Thanks in advance!

~Jim
Posted by Preston Birdwell on January 21, 2007 at 11:00 PM
Jim,

You might want to try either Noise Ninja or Neat Image to try to remove the noise. I use Neat Image and have found it to work quite well. I have had less than acceptable noise reduction using the noise filter in PSCS2.

There is a sharpening technique that uses the 'lightness' channel in the Lab color space...

Sharpening Tip

I have found the technique to be very easy and effective.

-PB
Posted by Bill Chambers on January 21, 2007 at 11:33 PM
Hi Jim - I captured your image and used Noise Ninja and PK Sharpener on it. I used the Edge Protected Noise Smoothing Brush and the Depth of Field Sharpening Brush in PK to add a little additional smoothing and to resharpen some of the lost detail caused by Noise Ninja. It was a very hurried attempt and far from perfect, but I think you will get the idea.

Link is HERE
Posted by Hank Pennington on January 22, 2007 at 1:17 AM
Haven't gone to the link because of my slow connection, but I'll add this to the suggestions. As a matter of course I always do my sharpening as a mask and keep it away from large expanses such as sky or water. You'll be amazed how much of the grain effect derives from those areas. Not a compleat solution, but it helps in many cases without a lot of effort.