p.1 #1 · Noise reduction after sharpening or before
I just got ahold of a standalone noise reduction software that seems to do fairly well. Now I am switch back and forth between Lightroom and the the other software. Anyways, for those who are more knowledgeable about this, is it generally better to sharpen then do noise reduction or vice versa? Does the order matter?
p.1 #2 · Noise reduction after sharpening or before
Sharpening, IMHO, increases noise - not really the noise itself, but the edges of noise patterns.
I've always found it better to do NR before much of anything in the image, so that you're working with the noise more accurate out of the camera, and then the detail that you need to sharpen/correct.
p.1 #4 · Noise reduction after sharpening or before
Before sharpening.
I now do all my nNR in lightroom. If I am going to sharpen in LR too then I will do noise first, sharpen and then readjust noise if its being amped too much. However, I usually sharpen outside LR.
I do NR after the colour work has been done, otherwise my NR wont be relevant to the final luminosity of the image.
p.1 #7 · Noise reduction after sharpening or before
Geofn wrote:
Noise reduction first, then all of your other processing, and finally sharpening last.
I disagree; strongly.
Do all GLOBAL color and tonal adjustments, then noise reduction, and output-specific sharpening last. If NR is done first actions like adjusting highlights or exposure will reveal even more noise.
p.1 #9 · Noise reduction after sharpening or before
James_N wrote:
I disagree; strongly.
Do all GLOBAL color and tonal adjustments, then noise reduction, and output-specific sharpening last. If NR is done first actions like adjusting highlights or exposure will reveal even more noise.
To add to this my tendency is to do all the above first for the whole job and then go back and do the noise, or at least in chunks that relate to the flow of the event. I don't do colour/tonal work and then noise for each shot as I am swapping brains too much IYKWIM, I do the colour/tonality in a batch and then do a run of noise removal. Its what suits my workflow but whatever happens its always noise after the main colour/tonality work.
p.1 #10 · Noise reduction after sharpening or before
Jabberwockt wrote:
I just got ahold of a standalone noise reduction software that seems to do fairly well. Now I am switch back and forth between Lightroom and the the other software. Anyways, for those who are more knowledgeable about this, is it generally better to sharpen then do noise reduction or vice versa? Does the order matter?
Lightroom (v3) does an amazing job with noise reduction and it does it in a non destructive way using the raw file. There is no "rendering" and this will speed up your workflow significantly. Noise reduction and sharpening are used together in Lightroom.
