Very noisy images

[Martin Ocando]

Hello. I'm using LR and Noiseware Pro. I wonder what is the right thing to do when I shoot at night with high ISO and the images have very strong noise.

1.- Apply Noiseware, then Capture Sharpening or
2.- Capture Sharpening and then Noiseware

Thanks for your help.

[francois]

Hello. I'm using LR and Noiseware Pro. I wonder what is the right thing to do when I shoot at night with high ISO and the images have very strong noise.

1.- Apply Noiseware, then Capture Sharpening or
2.- Capture Sharpening and then Noiseware

Thanks for your help.
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1 - You don't want to sharpen noise.

[Martin Ocando]

1 - You don't want to sharpen noise.
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I know, but since all images comes out of a DSLR with some form of softness, due to the Antialiasing filter, then I wonder if I reduce noise of an unsharped image will result it to be too soft.

But you are right, better noise free and a bit soft, than sharp and noisy.

[francois]

I know, but since all images comes out of a DSLR with some form of softness, due to the Antialiasing filter, then I wonder if I reduce noise of an unsharped image will result it to be too soft.

But you are right, better noise free and a bit soft, than sharp and noisy.
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I always deal with noise first (if needed) and then perform capture sharpening. You may have to be careful when removing noise, don't over-do it.

[Martin Ocando]

I always deal with noise first (if needed) and then perform capture sharpening. You may have to be careful when removing noise, don't over-do it.
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Yup. I always try to look at what Lightroom can do, then if is no good, I go out to Noiseware. But it tends to be very harsh on noise, so I use Jeff Schewe technique of applying only to the shadows (with blending options), and to a layer, so I can set the opacity.

[Monito]

Apply capture sharpening as the very first thing you do, as part of the Raw conversion process along with the White Balance.  Capture sharpening is very minimal, just enough to counteract the anti-aliasing filter (which is needed to avoid moire and aliasing).  On Canon DPP, I use level 1 (occasionally 2) out of 10 for capture sharpening, that's how minimal it is.

Do creative sharpening along with noise reduction during the main photoshop processing and tuning.  Use edge masks so that the sharpening is only applied to edges and noise reduction is applied to broader smoother areas where noise is most visible anyway.

Ron Bigelow wrote an excellent set of six articles on the three phases of sharpening:  http://ronbigelow.com/articles/sharpen1/sharpen1.htm

[sergio]

I do my capture sharpening with Focus Magic. Give a blur=2 and results are far better than any other method I have tried. I output from LR with absolutley no sharpening.