Uncover the techniques of reducing digital noise in your photographs with our detailed Photoshop tutorial, learning how to apply the Camera Raw filter effectively.
This exercise is excerpted from Noble Desktop’s past Photoshop training materials and is compatible with Photoshop updates through 2020. To learn current skills in Photoshop, check out our Photoshop Bootcamp and graphic design classes in NYC and live online.
Note: These materials are provided to give prospective students a sense of how we structure our class exercises and supplementary materials. During the course, you will get access to the accompanying class files, live instructor demonstrations, and hands-on instruction.
Topics covered in this Photoshop tutorial:
Reducing digital camera noise, The Camera Raw filter
Exercise Preview
Photo Copyright © Dan Rodney, danrodney.com
Exercise Overview
Some cameras produce more noise than others, but digital photos shot at a higher ISO often have undesirable noise. Ideally noise reduction is applied to the original RAW file. That will produce a better result than working with JPEG files. If you don’t have a RAW file though, you can still use Camera Raw’s noise reduction (and other features). That’s what you’ll learn about in this exercise.
NOTE: This technique requires Photoshop CC. Secondly, Photoshop has a Reduce Noise filter but it’s not as good as Camera Raw’s noise reduction.
Using Camera Raw as a Filter
In Photoshop go to File > Open.
Double–click House of Blues.jpg to open it.
An Embedded Profile Mismatch dialog should appear. Because it will be used on the web, and its embedded color profile of sRGB is well suited for web design, leave Use the embedded profile (instead of the working space) selected and click OK.
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Choose Filter > Camera Raw Filter.
NOTE: By default, filters are permanent (destructive) changes. They change the pixels of the current layer. If you’re going to retouch after applying noise reduction, you probably won’t come back and change the amount of noise reduction because the retouched areas would no longer match. But if you want to apply this filter non-destructively, you could choose Filter > Convert for Smart Filters and then apply the Camera Raw Filter. Keep in mind that any retouching would need to be done on new layers above, or you must double–click on the Smart Object thumbnail and do your retouching on the original (noisy) image. Also keep in mind that Smart Objects can increase the size of your file considerably.
At the bottom left of the window, set the zoom to 200%. You should at least be at 100% zoom to see the fine details we’ll be working with.
Press H to switch to the Hand tool
.Drag on the image to scroll down to the bottom right of the image, so you can see the bottom area of the House of Blues sign.
On the right side of the window, switch to the Detail tab
(it’s third from the left).There are two types of noise, Luminance and Color. Luminance noise is light and dark specks in the image, while color noise is specks of various colors—red, green, etc. We’ll start with the luminance noise. In the Noise Reduction section, set the Luminance to 100.
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Let’s compare the before and after:
Press the P key to see the original image (turning off the preview).
Press P again to see the final image with our changes. The noise has been lessened, but the color noise still remains. Let’s remove that next.
Set Color to 60 and notice that the noise is reduced even further.
Press the P key a couple times to see the before and after, making sure you end up with the preview back on.
Tweaking the Luminance Noise Settings
The noise has been reduced, but let’s see if we can do better.
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Slowly drag the Luminance Detail slider left and right to see the effect on the image.
- Dragging to the right preserves detail, but there’s more noise.
- Dragging to the left gives a smoother image, but more details are lost.
- We need to find the sweet spot where we still have detail, but have as little noise as possible. Set the Luminance Detail to 40.
You should always check out a few parts of the image, so drag on the image to move towards the top left and find the base of the yellow water tower where the bottom goes into a large round pipe.
Press the P key a couple times to see the before and after, making sure you end up with the preview back on.
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Here you can see we’re losing some of the finer details in the texture of the metal, so increase the Luminance Detail to 45.
That brings back some of the lost detail. While we could go higher for this area, don’t forget it would make noise more visible in the sign, so it’s a balancing act.
Scroll to the right so you can see the OF in the House of Blues sign.
Quickly drag the Luminance Contrast slider back and forth. The change will be very minor, so go right from 0 to 100 (and back and forth) to see if you can notice a few details appearing in the flat metal areas of the sign.
This setting can be hard to see. We think a Luminance Contrast of 100 works for this image because it brings out a few more details.
Tweaking the Color Noise Settings
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Drag the Color Detail slider back and forth. Again this setting doesn’t make a huge difference, but look for the following:
- 0 helps reduce the visibility of color noise, but color detail can be lost. The colors may become blurred together, so some details may be lost.
- 100 maintains the original color details, but more noise is retained.
- For this image we can get away with 0 because there aren’t many color details we need to keep.
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Experiment with Color Smoothness. Again this is a subtle adjustment, but look at the bottom of the sign (in the bottom-right corner of the image).
A setting of 100 should be good at reducing the color noise.
For final judgment, zoom to 100%.
Press the P key a couple times to see the before and after.
When you’re satisfied, on the lower right, click OK.
That’s all we wanted to do on this image, but now is when you’d continue on with any other changes you want to make. We’re done with this image though, so you can just close it without saving changes.