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Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Lose Noise With Plug-Ins

Caponigro explains why and how he uses Noiseware

This Article Features Photo Zoom

7) Frequency

Noiseware’s ability to target noise reduction to specific aspects of an image is what makes it unparalleled. You can adjust Noise Reduction based on Luminance or Chrominance; higher settings produce stronger noise reduction. You can target Noise Level based on Luminance or Chrominance; higher settings tell the software there’s more noise. You can target Color Range; Noise Reduction and Noise Level can be customized by hue—reds, yellows, greens, cyans, blues, magentas, neutrals. You can target Tonal Range; Noise Reduction and Noise Level can be customized for shadows, midtones and highlights. You can target image areas based on Frequency (or amount of detail); Noise Reduction and Noise Level can be customized to High, Mid, Low and Very Low frequencies. Finally, you can enhance detail, first, by using Detail Protection to reduce the effect based on Luminance or Color, and second, by using Detail Enhancement, which provides Sharpening, Contrast and Edge Smoothening.

Noiseware’s ability to provide this level of selectivity is extraordinary. It allows you to easily customize noise reduction for separate areas of an image without making complex masks. You’ll want to do this. Here’s just one example, among many, of why you want to do this. Smooth image areas reveal noise much more readily and they support more noise reduction, while highly textured image areas hide noise, but don’t support as much noise reduction without compromising apparent image sharpness.

8) Detail

Use Noiseware’s sharpening sparingly and only for the most modest boosts to image sharpness, and you can create much more sophisticated and selective results in Photoshop—and almost every image can use a little sharpening after noise reduction. Always reduce noise before sharpening.

Combine today’s digital cameras with the latest software, and you’ll find that you’ll rethink many things about when and where you make exposures. You’ll shoot at higher ISOs that you once thought were unusable. You’ll shoot in low levels of light where you once thought it was impossible to get an exposure, much less a usable one. You’ll look at your digital files, and where once you thought noise was a deal-breaker, you’ll find it no longer is. Noise-reduction skills and noise-reduction tools are essential to any photographers skill set and toolkit. Master them, and liberate yourself.

John Paul Caponigro, author of Adobe Photoshop Master Class and the DVD series R/Evolution, is an internationally renowned fine artist, an authority on digital printing, and a respected lecturer and workshop leader. Get over 100 free downloads and his e-newsletter Insights free at www.johnpaulcaponigro.com.