Noise Reduction: Free Lightroom Tutorial

Topics covered in this Lightroom tutorial:

Removing noise, Bringing back some detail

Exercise Preview

Exercise Overview

In this exercise, you’ll learn how to remove noise (dots and splotches of color that often appear in photographs taken in low-light situations) from an image taken with a mobile phone.

Removing Noise

1. If you have not imported the photos that were imported in Exercise 2E:
   • Go into the Library module.
   • At the bottom left of the screen, click Import.
   • In the dialog box that appears, on the left under Source, navigate to Desktop > Class Files > Lightroom Class and select the Develop folder.
   • At the top, above the photos, make sure Add is selected (highlighted).
   • On the bottom right, click Import.

2. In the Library module, press G to enter Grid View if you are not already in it.

3. Click on the streetlamp photo (20120815_YourName_043 or IMG_3109).

4. Press D to go into the Develop module.

5. At the top of the Navigator panel, click on 2:1 to view the image at 200%. (You may need to click on the zoom level triangles and select it from the menu.)

6. Make sure one of the glowing streetlamp bulbs is visible.

   This photo was taken with an iPhone at dusk, so it has lots of noise (speckles due to shooting with a high ISO or a device with a small sensor in a low-light situation).

7. On the right, expand the Detail panel (collapse the other panels if you need to).

8. Let’s maximize the space we have to work. To hide the top and bottom panels, click the arrows at the top and bottom center. Your screen should look similar to:

   

9. In the Detail panel under Noise Reduction, drag the Color slider from 0 to 100. This doesn’t make a huge difference in this photograph because it doesn’t have much Color noise (splotches of bright colors, like lime and magenta).

10. Drag the Color slider back to 0.

11. In the Navigator panel, move the box over the image so the area shown below is visible (the proportions may look slightly different depending on your screen size):

    

12. There are two types of noise. Luminance noise is light and dark specks in the image. In the Detail panel, under Noise Reduction, drag the Luminance slider from 0 to 100. Wow, this makes a big difference in the graininess of the photo!

Bringing Back Some Detail

1. At the top-left corner of the Detail panel, toggle the Switch off and on to view the changes. You’ll notice a loss of detail in the lamp post; one of the problems of adjusting Luminance is that it can soften photos too much.

2. Because we’re losing too much detail, drag the Luminance slider to somewhere around 60 or 70, whatever looks best to you.

   The key to using these noise reduction tools is dragging the slider to the perfect point between eliminating noise and losing too much detail in the photograph.

3. Notice there is a Detail slider under Noise Reduction. This will allow us to bring back some of the photograph’s detail that was lost when removing noise.

4. Drag the Detail slider to 0 and notice the photo is completely soft.

5. Drag the Detail slider to 100 and notice that the photo is very sharp, but some of the noise has returned.

6. Play around with the Detail slider until you don’t see much noise, but the edges of the lamp post look crisp. A setting around 60 worked well for us.

7. At the top-left corner of the Detail panel, toggle the Switch off and on to view the changes.

   The photo looks much better now, almost like it wasn’t taken with a mobile phone!