Comments on: Digital Camera Noise Reduction - What You Need to Know

By: Ros

Ros — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 22:15:32 +0000

I previoulsy owned a Canon Powershot S50 until my daughter smashed the viewcreen….so I treated myself to a slinky Sont Cybershot DSC-T100….I’m delighted with the appearance of the camera but I’m deeply irritated (to the point that I’m considering buying something else) because the noise is soooooooooooooooo bad. What am I doing wrong? I take zillions of photos of my young daughter and don’t want such noisy, rotten images of her growing up….the photos of her first nativity were a write-off : (

By: JR

JR — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 14:47:40 +0000

For shooting the moon or just the night sky I found that the in-camera noise reduction on my Oly E500 worked very well, more than I had hoped. It takes a while for the image to be processed by the camera but well worth it. First time I used it last night with the moon being so bright and the sky being so clear, how could I resist.

By: Ted Fisher

Ted Fisher — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 17:31:52 +0000

I recommend that photographers try a test with their camera at all ISO settings, and then decide for themselves what speeds are usable and what creates too much noise.

And here’s a trick for those times the light is so low you can’t do anything but shoot at a noisier high-ISO setting: consider that while digital noise is usually unpleasant, most people are comfortable with a bit of film grain — we tend to think of that as part of the charm of black and white photographs. So, if you have that once-in-a-lifetime photo that had to be shot at ISO 1600 and the noise is bothering you too much, consider masking it by adding a little film-like grain. Open a copy of the image with Adobe Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, then choose FILTER > NOISE > ADD NOISE. Set this to “monochromatic” and “gaussian” and try 2-3% — and you may end up with the look of pleasant film grain in place of blocky digital noise.