How do I reduce noise by using layers?

[shaylou]

Hello, can you please explain how layers works in reducing noise. I would also like to have some videos or links to info if you might know of any. I'm using lightroom 4. Thank you in advance for all your help.

 

[StewartR]

I think you've got yourself confused somewhere. Lightroom doesn't have layers, and even if it did, you wouldn't use them to reduce noise. You'd use the Noise Reduction controls, surely?

 

[shaylou]

Yes I am confused. I was told that one method of reducing noise in pp is by using layers. I did not know that it was not something that lightroom does not offer. I am still interested in the pp method however.

 

[StewartR]

Now I'm confused. You have in Lightroom a perfectly good way to reduce noise. But you want to learn about a different and more cumbersome way of doing it, which you couldn't use even if you understood it?

 

[DayDreamer]

Now I'm confused.

Makes two of us

There is a free noise ware reducer called Noiseware Community Edition that some on TP use. I just use LR5 or PS

 

[shaylou]

layering is a more complete way of reducing noise without softening the shot or loosing other qualities like you do when you use the noise reduction in Lightroom. With high noise shots you loose sharpness you had when you use their noise reduction. I just went through this on some shots and that is why I'm looking for other options.
So back to the question. Can someone kindly explain how it works and what I need to use it?

 

[Deleted member 67219]

layering is a more complete way of reducing noise without softening the shot or loosing other qualities like you do when you use the noise reduction in Lightroom. With high noise shots you loose sharpness you had when you use their noise reduction. I just went through this on some shots and that is why I'm looking for other options.
So back to the question. Can someone kindly explain how it works and what I need to use it?

If you want to reduce noise using layers you need to use Photoshop.

However Lightroom has a really awesome noise reduction slider and I've never felt the need to use anything else since I've got it.

Ultimately though the key to minimising the impact of noise is to expose your images well in the first place, much of the problem then disappears.

 

[Pookeyhead]

layering is a more complete way of reducing noise without softening the shot or loosing other qualities like you do when you use the noise reduction in Lightroom. With high noise shots you loose sharpness you had when you use their noise reduction. I just went through this on some shots and that is why I'm looking for other options.
So back to the question. Can someone kindly explain how it works and what I need to use it?

The most common way is to use a smart Surface blur layer, and then layer mask the detail back. To be honest though, it's nowhere near as good as using Lightroom's NR facilities, and is time consuming, cumbersome, and not worth the while.

Are you sure you are not just having unrealistic expectations from your images?

Why not post up a RAW file of one of the images you are working with (use drop box or something), let me have a stab at it, and see how that compares to your results. I reckon you're just expecting too much. Noise reduction will always reduce fine detail quality to some extent. At least with Lightroom, you are working utterly non-destructively, and things can be returned to an "as shot" state with a single mouse click.

I always handle noise at the RAW stage... never at the bitmapped stage.

 

[f1charlie]

I was told that one method of reducing noise in pp is by using layers.

Here's a quick description of the theory and how you would use it in Photoshop (other programs with layers facility are available!):

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/image-averaging-noise.htm

 

[Pookeyhead]

....you'll still get better results just using LR's NR features.

That link is for averaging different frames of the same scene... not just reducing noise in a single image It relies on noise being random... using identical layers of the same image will not have random noise.. they'll all be identical. The link is just manually doing what "stacking" programs to automatically.

 

[f1charlie]

That link is for averaging different frames of the same scene... not just reducing noise in a single image It relies on noise being random... using identical layers of the same image will not have random noise.. they'll all be identical. The link is just manually doing what "stacking" programs to automatically.

Guilty of not reading the whole article properly

 

[Pookeyhead]

'tis easily done

 

[hollis_f]

....you'll still get better results just using LR's NR features.

That link is for averaging different frames of the same scene... not just reducing noise in a single image It relies on noise being random... using identical layers of the same image will not have random noise.. they'll all be identical. The link is just manually doing what "stacking" programs to automatically.

And I suspect that a misunderstanding of this my be at the heart of the OPs confusion.

 

[GardenersHelper]

Shayne, I use layers in CS2 for noise reduction, but I'd be very surprised if you needed to use this technique because as Charlotte says Lightroom has good facilities for noise reduction. For videos about Lightroom, have a look here at Adobe TV's Lightroom episodes. The one on noise reduction is about half way down the page under the heading of "Sharpening and Noise Reduction". If you are still not convinced, then I think David's suggestion of posting an image that you aren't happy with is a good idea, perhaps in the post processing forum.

So if the noise reduction is so good in Lightroom why don't I use it? First, I do use Lightroom's default colour noise reduction when importing images into Lightroom. This gets rid of all the colour noise in all the images I have processed in Lightroom, from several cameras. The reason I don't use Lightroom's luminance noise reduction is that I deal with particularly noisy images captured in "photographically hostile" environments using cameras with very small (P&S sized) sensors which are noisy, and the one I use is particularly noisy, sometimes even at base ISO.

Lightroom can get rid of the noise, but it destroys too much detail and and subtle tonality for my purposes. I am dealing with macros/close-ups, often of finely structured invertebrates and delicately shaded flowers. I need to reduce the noise selectively in plain backgrounds, which is where it shows up most. You can use the adjustment brush in Lightroom to apply noise reduction to a selected area (this might be new in Lightroom 5), but for some reason the noise reduction available via the adjustment brush is nowhere near as strong as that you can use on the whole image, and not strong enough for my purposes.

Instead, I process images in Lightroom without applying any noise reduction beyond the import colour noise reduction and then send the image over to CS2 for finishing off (resizing and sharpening, and a couple of minor things before and after that). If the image is too noisy to use as is, I go back to Lightroom and apply Lightroom's very powerful whole-image noise reduction to the image. I then send that noise-reduced version across to CS2 and add the other (noisy) version to it as a layer. I then paint with the eraser on the noisy layer (or create a layer mask and paint on that) to reveal the noise reduced version in the smooth background areas. For some other areas I may reduce the opacity of the brush I'm using and paint them to give them an intermediate amount of noise reduction.

It sounds complicated and time consuming, but it is surprisingly quick and easy after practising it a few times. But like others here I very much doubt you need to go to the trouble of doing something like this.

 

[shaylou]

Thanks everyone for all the good info. I think that Nick's version is what the photographer that told me about layers was referring to. Not sure if I want to get that far into pp but might need to if I have to keep shooting at 4000 iso on my 5d3.