I was chatting with a forum member about Noise Reduction (nr) today and I got the idea to put a really easy tutorial that covers the very basics of nr using Photoshop. I figured there are lots of new members who may not know certain techniques. The screen shots here are from CS 6 but I have been using the same techniques since CS 3.

Feel free to ask questions

Tim


First open the image and crop if needed. Then select the subject using whatever method you are comfortable with. Then hit shift-ctrl-i to invert the selection. Or go to the Select menu and choose Invert. This make everything selected EXCEPT the subject.

Then go the Filter menu and select Noise - reduce noise

You then get the following dialogue box. Move the sliders to the values as shown and hit OK

That should blur the noise to a smooth background. If it needs more, hit it again with the same noise filter. Better yet create an action that does this step and assign a hot key, that way you select, invert, hit the key as many times as needed.

That removes the noise from the background. Now if you need the noise removed on the subject, invert the selection again. shift-ctrl-i. Then run a plugin such as Noise Ninja or Topaz Denoise or some other plugin that allows fine tuning and remove just as much noise as needed without loosing too much sharpness.

For this image the subject looks fine without any NR applied. Here is the final product.

Great job Tim.

Rob

That will be helpful Tim for many since it does not require a Plug-in program to do.

I am curious here, did you in the finished image do just the BG and leave the bird and the flower alone? I was going to add that you could select items that you want to not run this on, then re-select items again to do with a varied setting perhaps, so in this case, hit the BG hard with NR, none on the bird and maybe a bit to soften the flower?

And it also gives a sense of a sharper subject and more depth in the image

Karl

This is the exact method I use. Thanks for sharing, Tim.

Bruce

Thank you so Tim for this. I will definitely give it a try. I am having trouble with noise/grain in high ISO.

Again REALLY appreciate your efforts, and time to do this.

Birdie

Greatly appreciated!

Thanks Tim! You've just distilled a 40 page manual into few easy steps.

Very helpful. Thanks Tim.

awesome! Thanks Tim. Just learned something new today!

This is ALSO the EXACT method I use......now.

Thanks GP.

H

Much appreciated Tim!

Thanks Tim - very interesting.
Bob

Thanx Tim - you just validated my method ~ Ron

I figured there are lots of new members who may not know certain techniques.

Thanks for putting this up. I'm one of those new members learning these techniques. While I don't use photoshop, it's the principle of not doing NR where detail is important that is the concept.

thanks for this tutorial.

Thanks for putting this up Tim,

This is basically the technique I use, just want to add that for anyone here using Photoshop Elements (rather than full blown photoshop) this method works fine their too.

Paul.

Tim:
A very nice and relivant post!

Thanks Tim, great info
David