Skip to main content

Digital Noise




Noise – You CAN See It…




Digital Noise – What it is and How to Correct it


In photography, the term digital noise refers to visual distortion. Noise can distort the visual detail of your photo and can give it a grainy appearance. Noise looks like tiny colored pixels or specks in your photograph.

3 Things that can affect digital noise – higher ISO settings, sensor size and long exposures. Once you can pinpoint where the noise is coming from, you can take steps to avoid it. But, there are times when  may not be a bad thing, it can give an image an artistic appearance

These are a few ways you can prevent large amounts of noise:

Lower the ISO: Higher ISOs produce more noise, so it helps to shoot with the lowest ISO that you can while still maintaining proper exposure. Most of the newer DSLR cameras can shoot at higher ISOs without producing noise.

Try opening up the aperture first and slowing down the shutter speed down to the minimum acceptable speed for the subject you are photographing before increasing ISO.

Larger Sensor: The size of a camera’s sensor plays a large role in the final image quality, including the level of noise in a photograph. Your camera’s sensor contains millions of “photosites,” or light-sensitive spots used to gather and record the information brought in through your camera’s lens. Larger sensors have the ability to gather more information. Crop-sensor cameras produce more noise in images at increased ISOs than full-frame cameras. Therefore, the larger your camera’s sensor, the better the image quality and less noise.

Expose Properly: When a photo is exposed properly, there is less introduction of noise into the image. By getting your exposure right in camera, you can avoid unnecessary noise.  Exposing your images properly in camera goes a long way to preventing undesirable noise.

Correcting Noise

Some cameras have built in noise reduction, which could be helpful. There are times when high ISOs are necessary and noise can be easily corrected in post-processing. In Lightroom’s Develop Module, you can reduce the appearance of noise in your images by using the Luminance slider in the Details panel. Simply move the slider to the right to reduce noise, using caution to not take it too far. Too much noise reduction can result in loss of detail in your images, giving them a “plastic” look.



There are many downloadable apps available that will calculate depth of field, exposure and light meter apps; lots of them are FREE. These can help calculate proper settings and thereby reducing noise in your images.




All Photographs in this post/blog © Cheryl Howard



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Travel Adventures 2023

Travel Adventures 2023 – So many places to go!   This year my husband and I traveled to Reno, Lake Tahoe and Yosemite National Park. I took lots of pictures but could only choose a few for this blog. I’ve included a little information about each location we visited, along with a few pictures. Enjoy! Reno is a city in the northwest section of the U.S. state of Nevada, along the Nevada-California border, about 22 miles (35 km) north from Lake Tahoe, known as "The Biggest Little City in the World". Known for its casino and tourism industry. We stayed at the Nugget Casino & Resort...and no, I did not put any money in the slot machines!!! :-) What's a vacation with shopping - the  Outlets at Legends  proved to be more than shopping. Then off to  Virginia City.   Lake Tahoe is located on the border of California and Nevada. About two-thirds of the lake is in California, with about one-third extending into Nevada at the north and south ends of the lake, and the entire

Happy Labor Day!

  Labor Day is an annual celebration of the social and economic achievements of American workers. It is a federal holiday in the United States celebrated on the first Monday in September to honor and recognize the American labor movement and the works and contributions of laborers to the development and achievements of the United States. The holidays stem from the late 1800s when labor activists wanted a federal holiday to recognize workers' contributions to the country.   The first U.S. Labor Day was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882 in New York City, planned by the Central Labor Union.  The Labor Day parade of about 10,000 workers took unpaid leave and marched from City Hall past Union Square uptown to 42nd street and ended in Wendel’s Elm Park at 92nd Street and 9th Avenue for a concert, speeches, and a picnic. Oregon was the first to declare Labor Day an official holiday in 1887. Labor Day is considered the 'unofficial NFL season kickoff.' 99.44 percent of the ti

Juneteenth 2023

Juneteenth  ...is considered the longest-running African-American holiday and has been called "America's second Independence Day." The day was recognized as a federal holiday in 2021, when President Joe Biden signed Juneteenth National Independence Day Act the into law.        Blessings!