New way to reduce noise.

I have tried something new on my backgrounds and have been very pleased with the results. Instead of running noise reduction software, I use my blur tool set to 100%. I use a large spot, like 370 pixels wide to run over the background. Smaller if I need to get in between the legs or spread feathers.

To work the main bird, I lower the tool to 20-40% depending on the job and change to 50 or so pixels and then just work local areas that are noisy rather than reducing the entire bird, which might result in loss of detail. The local reduction seems to play a good visual trick.

Overall the blur tool is doing a better job than noise reduction. At least, I have noted that you guys have not mentioned noise since I have been doing it that way for the last month.

Thanks for the excellent tip Angela, I'll certainly be giving this a try myself :^)

Glad to see this post Angela. I'll give this some exercise and see how it works for me. I sometime use a method that is similar. In an old MS "PhotoDraw" program I use an "airbrush" tool and sample a color from the BG to airbrush the existing BG. This has adjustments for size of area that is covered in the process.

Thanks for posting.

Angela, which blur tool do you use? I have been trying "Surface Blur", but don't know if that is what you use or a different blur. I have Elements 7 Thanks, Ray Dove

Angela
I have been using the same basic tecnique in CS3 recently and have had good results also. It can be fairly time consuming working with smaller brushes around the perimiter of birds and perch but the final results are worth it.
Clayton

I've been using something similar in lightroom for a little while now. If you are a lightroom user, just select brush, set to sharpen and then depending on the amount of noise I usually go to -60 or even -100. Works great on a noisy blue sky. And you get no artifacting this way.