Luminous Landscape Forum

Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Adobe Lightroom Q&A => Topic started by: Dinarius on September 28, 2013, 04:32:32 am

Title: Luminance Noise Reduction: Less required now? How much do you use?
Post by: Dinarius on September 28, 2013, 04:32:32 am
I use both LR 5.2 and ACR for processing Canon 1DsMklll RAW files. I'm assuming that the Luminance Noise slider is the same in both. 99% of what I shoot is tripod/100 ISO/lots of light.

Am I imagining things, or is there need for less luminance noise reduction now than there used to be?

In the past I typically moved the Luminance slider to about 40.

Now I'm finding that, firstly, a file looks better noise-wise in its unedited state. Is this because some default noise reduction is being applied, or simply that the software is better overall?

Secondly, I'm finding that when I do apply the luminance noise filter, an image becomes too soft at around 40, and I would have to get heavy with Sharpening to repair this.

How do others use it in situations with plenty of light?

Finally, since Luminance Noise is also known as greyscale noise, is there anything to be gained by sliding the Saturation slider to the left while one is making Luminance Noise corrections to better see the white pixels?

Thanks.

D.

Ps. Totally off topic, but I have to have a rant.......the two things I can't stand about LR are the absence of a Colour Sampler Tool and the % RGB readouts. I do a lot of my professional work with Gretag CCs, and I much prefer using Adobe Camera RAW for this processing. However, I love LR for my own work.

Title: Re: Luminance Noise Reduction: Less required now? How much do you use?
Post by: Dan Glynhampton on September 28, 2013, 04:55:27 am
When you say "is there need for less luminance noise reduction now than there used to be?" what are you comparing it to? I've only used Lightroom since the introduction of Process 2010, and I've not noticed any change in the luminance noise reduction behaviour in Process 2012, and I don't see a change in my experience between Lightroom 4.x and 5.x

Have you moved to Lightroom 5.2 from a previous version that used Process 2003?  I believe the noise reduction behaviour was different in Process 2003 and that may explain the difference that you see.

I shoot with a Canon 5D Mk2, which is full frame and of a similar vintage to your 1Ds Mk3, so I would expect it to be broadly comparable.  Whilst it can be difficult to generalise, I rarely get the luminance noise reduction slider up to 40 unless I'm shooting at ISO1600 or above.  In a well lit scene at ISO100 I would expect either to use no luminance noise reduction, or if there are some prominent shadow areas I might end up with it around 10.

A further thought - have you set any Lightroom defaults for your camera?  If so you may have included (possibly inadvertently) a default noise reduction setting for ISO100 which is now causing the confusion.

Dan
Title: Re: Luminance Noise Reduction: Less required now? How much do you use?
Post by: francois on September 28, 2013, 05:28:15 am
Same here (also with 1Ds3)... I rarely use luminance noise reduction with high values. I mostly stay between 10 and 35, even for my ISO 1600 photos. As you found out, using high values soften the images too much and one has to find a good balance between using global LNR, local and sharpening.

Jeff Schewe showed in one of the LuLa tutorial videos how he added a small amount of grain to regain texture after using noise reduction.

As for moving the saturation slide to the left to adjust LNR, a better way is to press the Option (Mac) or Alt (PC) key when you move the noise reduction slider. The image will be displayed as a B&W imageā€¦ I guess that's what you wanted to achieve with the salutation slide? The Option/Alt key trick works with sharpening too.

HTH
Title: Re: Luminance Noise Reduction: Less required now? How much do you use?
Post by: Dinarius on September 30, 2013, 03:23:16 am
Thanks for the replies and thanks for the tip re the Alt key and black and white - very useful.

One advantage converting by sliding the Saturation to the left is that you can then use the up/down arrow keys to make the noise reduction adjustment - finer to use than the slider, I find.

D.

Title: Re: Luminance Noise Reduction: Less required now? How much do you use?
Post by: Dan Glynhampton on September 30, 2013, 03:40:43 am
One advantage converting by sliding the Saturation to the left is that you can then use the up/down arrow keys to make the noise reduction adjustment - finer to use than the slider, I find.

Another keyboard tip/trick is to hold down the shift key whilst moving the sliders - it slows down the movement and gives you much finer control.

Dan
Title: Re: Luminance Noise Reduction: Less required now? How much do you use?
Post by: Dinarius on September 30, 2013, 01:44:43 pm
Another keyboard tip/trick is to hold down the shift key whilst moving the sliders - it slows down the movement and gives you much finer control.

Dan

Thanks again!  ;)



On the issue of noise and long exposures at low ISO - e.g. 100 - what do people consider a long exposure?

Thanks.

D.
Title: Re: Luminance Noise Reduction: Less required now? How much do you use?
Post by: Bart_van_der_Wolf on September 30, 2013, 02:21:59 pm
On the issue of noise and long exposures at low ISO - e.g. 100 - what do people consider a long exposure?

Hi,

Longer than approx. 1 second, because it is also when dark-frame subtraction becomes relevant.

Cheers,
Bart
Title: Re: Luminance Noise Reduction: Less required now? How much do you use?
Post by: Dinarius on September 30, 2013, 03:33:52 pm
Thanks for that.

Totally off topic, but the two things I can't stand about LR are; 1. It doesn't have a Colour Sampler Tool (CST) 2. The % RGB readouts.

A lot of my professional work entails using Gretag Colour Checkers. I find the CST in Adobe Camera Raw invaluable. For this reason, most of my pro work is processed using it. I also much prefer the 0-255 readout - habit, admittedly. But, if LR had a CST & the facility to choose between % & 0-255 it would be the complete package.
Title: Re: Luminance Noise Reduction: Less required now? How much do you use?
Post by: eliedinur on October 01, 2013, 01:09:52 am
Values in the 0-255 RGB scale are relative to the gamut of the color space. That means that the same color in different spaces will have different values. LR's histogram/numerical read-out space is Melissa RGB and 0-255 values in it would be meaningless (and probably misleading for most people). But what you really want to know is what those values will be in your eventual output space and for that there is soft proofing. Or, in LR5, the read-out in L*a*b* values, if you know how to interpret them, can be very useful.
Title: Re: Luminance Noise Reduction: Less required now? How much do you use?
Post by: ErikKaffehr on October 01, 2013, 01:12:06 am
Hi,

You can right click in the histogram and chose the option: "Show Lab Color Values".

Best regards
Erik


Values in the 0-255 RGB scale are relative to the gamut of the color space. That means that the same color in different spaces will have different values. LR's histogram/numerical read-out space is Melissa RGB and 0-255 values in it would be meaningless (and probably misleading for most people). But what you really want to know is what those values will be in your eventual output space and for that there is soft proofing.