There is yet another thread running on whether the 7D is unreasonably noisy. Please be courteous and don't take this thread there.
One of the questions that often gets asked but rarely gets answered (and when answered gets lost in 5 pages of banter - as did Whayne's answer in the other thread) is what processes and settings people use to maximize the quality of their 7D files. Let's keep this discussion on the technical level and offer suggestions rather than snarky responses.
For example...
I shoot only in RAW and use LR3. My base settings for ISO 400 and 800 files are:
Sharpening
Amount 60
Radius .7
Detail 15
Masking 40
Noise Reduction
Luminance 35
Detail 40
Contrast 25
Color 25
Detail 50
I rarely shoot over 800 for anything and when I do, I adjust for the particular environment rather than use a global setting.
Would love to see what others are using and discussions on how using different settings might yield better results.
Great thread idea. When I get home, I'll post a few photos and the settings I used.
Perhaps we can keep this to just questions about processing and parameters used for it. No comparisons to other models, and images should have exif intact.
When I briefly shot the 7D I found that NR was best in LR3 and sharpening was best done in CS5 with an edge-mask. The blue channel is particularly noisy in the 7D so I also did some minor NR to it in CS5 as well. I did not use presets on any ISO setting because of the variation in images that I shot.
Thank you Hrow, I kept asking these kinds of questions with little response. I'm switching to this thread.
Here is a bit on sharpening from PixelPerfect that I found useful:
Pixel Perfect wrote:
You can improve the image with capture sharpening [in the raw converter?], without adding to noise if you take some time to investigate the effects of the sliders. For the 7D I've found using
Amount: 40-55
radius: 0.6-0.8
detail: 10-15 up to ISO 800, 0-10 above that
mask: 25-35 upto ISO 800, 50-75 above that
works very well. The mask is the most important slider for making sure you don't enhance noise in textureless areas like sky. For other cameras like the 5D II I can use a bit less mask and a bit more detail.
The mask is what allows me to use a bit more for amount on sharpening. If you hold down the alt key and then click on the radius, detail and mask slider in turn you will see their effect in a luminosity mask view. Mask is used to constrain sharpening to edges. Zero mask means all the image is sharpened, 100% means only strong edges will be sharpened.
Capture One seems to handle the 7D better than LR3 and I'm using that more and more now. ...Show more →
I went back through my notes and found some postings by Garyvot from quite a while back. There is so much useful information here. I use this as the basis of my ACR workflow.
Garyvot:
My 7D processing tips, assuming you shoot RAW and process in ACR 6.x (LR is much the same):
1. If not already, try using Adobe's 'Adobe Standard' profile. I prefer Adobe's color rendering from the 7D than Canon's for most images
2. Set processing defaults to taste. (I find the 7D files a bit flat SOOC, so I add a bit of micro contrast with +10 Clarity, and strengthen the color response a bit with +15 Vibrance. I also enable lens profile corrections to correct for CA, but usually set the distortion and vignetting controls to zero as I prefer to make these corrections only in certain files. But, just set things up the way you like.)
3. Sharpening & NR: Right away I found that Adobe's defaults resulted in more (and coarser looking) noise at low and medium ISO speeds than DPP. Playing around with the sharpening a bit, I found that the radius setting appeared to be the major culprit. I settled on these defaults:
Sharpening:
o Amount: 35
o Radius: 0.6
o Detail: 25
o Masking: 25
Noise Reduction:
o Luminance: 15, 25, or 40 (depending on ISO)
o Luminance Detail: 60
o Luminance Contrast: 0
o Color: 25
o Color Detail: 50
The masking works well at low-medium ISOs, but can result in a more processed look at higher ISOs, so I will often disable it in favor of more organic looking grain. These settings are just starting points, play around to see what you like. I may also do additional sharpening in Photoshop for print output, but often this is all that is needed.
4. At higher ISOs, downsample. (I prefer using ACR for this, rather than Photoshop.). At high ISOs, the 7D files look great (after noise processing) as 11.2Mp finished files.
Don't be trapped into comparing camera-specific noise at 100%. Of course the 7D will have more noise than a 1D2, the sensor is not only smaller but much denser. But if you rendered an 8Mp finished file from a 7D RAW using some of these settings, you will be amazed at how clean and good it is.
As always, processing is a matter of taste. You may find these settings better, or worse, for you, so tweak away!...Show more →
I usually shoot 7D RAW at ISO 160, 320, 640 and 1250 and process them to 16-bit TIFFs in Aperture 3. I find these ISO settings cleaner than 200, 400, 800 and 1600. Although people even whine about noise at ISO 100-200 I find 160 really doesn't need NR if exposed to the right and pulled down prior to conversion. Obviously you can't use this technique on every photo--some have too much dynamic range--but I do it when I can. I leave Aperture sharpening low or off as I prefer to sharpen selectively and optimize for file size (different for web galleries vs large prints) as my final "save as" step in PS.
Of course all of Canon's auto illumination and HL modes should be disabled if noise control is important.
I find the de-noise, radius and moire sliders in Aperture 3 work great up ISO 640. However if a high ISO image contains a lot of skies or lower mids I get better results using Topaz Denoise 5 in a separate PS layer. I like being able to apply differing amounts of NR to shadows, skies or color channels without touching the well exposed subject. Also, I prefer not to pull up shadows too much as, besides accentuating patterned noise, it just looks unnatural to compress shadows, mids and highs into a narrow range. Hate the quasi HDR look.
Topaz Denoise on sky (ISO 800). The sky was really noisy and needed heavy NR. Should have used ISO 640 but I didn't know any better at the time.
It really depends on the image. If the subject matter fills a large percentage of the frame then you can get by with little or no NR, for example a tight portrait. If the subject matter is much smaller then you have the classic battle between NR and detail. In those situations and depending on how important the image is I'll switch from LR to PS to get more selectivity on the NR, on a per-region basis (masks/layers) and on a per-color channel basis. I'm hoping LR adds NR settings to the local adjustment tools in a future version.
I think this thread would benefit from seeing images processed with the settings that that are being stated. My sharpening settings change significantly if the image is a landscape vs. a portrait.
Hrow wrote:
There is yet another thread running on whether the 7D is unreasonably noisy. Please be courteous and don't take this thread there.
One of the questions that often gets asked but rarely gets answered (and when answered gets lost in 5 pages of banter - as did Whayne's answer in the other thread) is what processes and settings people use to maximize the quality of their 7D files. Let's keep this discussion on the technical level and offer suggestions rather than snarky responses.
For example...
I shoot only in RAW and use LR3. My base settings for ISO 400 and 800 files are:
Sharpening
Amount 60
Radius .7
Detail 15
Masking 40
Noise Reduction
Luminance 35
Detail 40
Contrast 25
Color 25
Detail 50
I rarely shoot over 800 for anything and when I do, I adjust for the particular environment rather than use a global setting.
Would love to see what others are using and discussions on how using different settings might yield better results.
Interesting you use 35 luminance NR. That's how much I use for an ISO 3200 shot. For ISO 100-200 I use 3-5, ISO 400 8-12, ISO 800 15-20, ISO 1600 20-30. For detail I use around 65 and contrast 25. I found I was using more NR until I discovered how badly the detail setting was affecting the apparent noise in the shot. Since then I've backed this slider way off as it adds crazing like noise to areas of low texture, like skies, smooth water, painted walls etc. Using more mask allows more sharpening without accentuating noise.
Jeff Nolten wrote:
Being critical, the plane of focus is centered on the birds feet so the head and bill are a tad OOF. I should probably have used f8 to get all of him in focus.
Or you should have just focused on the eye/head; the feet are not that critical anyway and if they were a little out of focus, no big deal. Admittedly, it is easier said than done though
Yes John, but that thread, like so many others just showed images at this or that ISO without giving much insight on how to process them after capture. I did see this post in that thread:
RGS65 wrote:
What this thread clearly discloses is that the 7D is capable of very good performance IF (and that's a big if) the photographer also knows how to properly process the image. Some of the shots look horrible and others are stunning. I don't chalk that up to camera variations - it's a result of properly exposed images when taken AND post-processing skills.
That is what this thread is about. You presumably have had your 7D since that January thread and use some nice telephotos with it. Would you care to share your post processing techniques? Thanks.
Pixel Perfect wrote:
Interesting you use 35 luminance NR. That's how much I use for an ISO 3200 shot. For ISO 100-200 I use 3-5, ISO 400 8-12, ISO 800 15-20, ISO 1600 20-30. For detail I use around 65 and contrast 25. I found I was using more NR until I discovered how badly the detail setting was affecting the apparent noise in the shot. Since then I've backed this slider way off as it adds crazing like noise to areas of low texture, like skies, smooth water, painted walls etc. Using more mask allows more sharpening without accentuating noise.
Hmmm, with a Luminance setting of 3-5 I can't even see any impact. I'll have to play around a bit tomorrow to see if I am doing something wrong or very different. I have no expertise in this area so I have no doubt that my settings can be improved upon and its great to see how others are doing it.
Nice shot Jim. Where did you capture the pica? The only places I've seen them I wouldn't want to lug a 500 mm lens to.
I can't say I see any real difference between images. Perhaps the fur in the second one looks a little more distinct but I could be hallucinating. The eye glint in the second image is more concentrated, showing more sharpening.
Damn, everyones 500 images look so good. This could cost me a lot of money and I only wanted to learn how to reduce noise.
Jeff Nolten wrote:
Nice shot Jim. Where did you capture the pica? The only places I've seen them I wouldn't want to lug a 500 mm lens to.
I can't say I see any real difference between images. Perhaps the fur in the second one looks a little more distinct but I could be hallucinating. The eye glint in the second image is more concentrated, showing more sharpening.
Damn, everyones 500 images look so good. This could cost me a lot of money and I only wanted to learn how to reduce noise.
Hi Jeff
There are quite few places close to Calgary to find pikas - Kananaskis Country and Banff are my favourite places.
Thanks Jim, I've been meaning to schedule a truck trip up there.
Regarding your images, I don't see a difference in noise, but they are ISO 100 shots. While the 7D does have some ISO 100 noise, its very easy to clean and the default settings in your first image may have taken care of that. The settings Hrow gave at the beginning were for ISOs in the 400 to 800 range (as a start). Whayne (Pixelperfect) above gave some ISO 100 settings in his post.
Here is another post from Garyvot from out of my notes that talks about 7D low ISO noise processing:
Garyvot:
Re. the various comments about low ISO noise: low-ISO noise is simply a fact of life with modern, high-density sensors such as that in the 7D. I don't like it, but I find I can deal with it using a proper NR workflow. A few 7D IQ tips that work for me:
1. For best sharpness at ISO 100: process in DPP and enable both the CA and 'color blur' lens corrections (the CA is the most important for a sharpness boost). Make sure to set both NR sliders to zero or 'off'. Then process to TIFF, and (optionally) clean up any residual noise in Photoshop using Neat Image with *conservative* settings. (I find Neat Image or Noise Ninja is much less destructive than Canon's NR.)
2. To clean up ISO 100 noise during RAW conversion: Current versions of ACR and LR have some of the best noise reduction available. Leave Color NR at the default (25), then try setting the Luminance slider to somewhere between 15 or 25, and bump up the luma sharpness to 60. Very little if any impact on image sharpness, and resulting image looks more like that from a full-frame camera....Show more →
