Noise Reduction -When?

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Paul
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I'm interested in finding out from experienced users, at what stage in pp any Noise Reduction is undertaken.
Does it make a difference during RAW processing (and none in jpeg), or is it best done in jpeg alone?
Do you do it before any exposure or enhancing adjustments?
Do you do it before or after cropping? -does it make a difference?
I'm honestly interested, as I want to get the best from my images (I currently do it at the end, just before sharpening), - maybe I'm totally wrong in this?
My software is Affinity and PSElements.
 
FWIW as I have always understood it and do so now.

As a rule of thumb always shoot raw.
All raw files will need a tad of initial 'capture sharpening' many editing softwares do that by default.
All noise reduction should be a first step = you don't want to be sharpening noise further in you pp workflow!

So, reduce noise first then pp to taste including any cropping and resizing. Then output sharpening as needed before you export as the final usage jpeg :)

PS I would not say I am the most experienced user of software and certainly not in a position to comment about Affinity or PSE. Though I have Affinity Photo it has not had a lot of use.....I bought it primarily for its (best in class?) Inpaint cloning tool.

PPS I now use DxO PhotoLab4 as my primary software but still finalise my jpegs in Photoshop CS6. IMO and for my workflow.....no single program is 100% best at all PP steps, I use the best in my opinion for what each will do for me ;)
 
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Interesting, I usually do things more or less in the order in which they appear on the RH panel in Lightroom, so sharpening and noise reduction come later. Depends on your camera I guess but I often don't bother with either specifically and let the output to jpeg do default sharpening. If I have pulled up the shadows then I would want to do noise reduction afterwards if necessary to reduce any noise introduced by doing that.
 
sirch said:
Interesting, I usually do things more or less in the order in which they appear on the RH panel in Lightroom, so sharpening and noise reduction come later. Depends on your camera I guess but I often don't bother with either specifically and let the output to jpeg do default sharpening. If I have pulled up the shadows then I would want to do noise reduction afterwards if necessary to reduce any noise introduced by doing that.
Click to expand...

Yes, fair point about the camera....
My Canon 40D never needed noise reduction.
The 7D on the other hand was hard to take noise wise.
The 5D3 was, in common with the old 40D a joy and did not need noise reduction in post unless I pushed to ISO to extremes

On the other hand my Olympus bodies always need some attention to noise reduction and the way DxO Photolab handled the MK2 noise meant I bought their software. As s consequence I get the very best IMO out of those raw files.

But AFAIK, as mentioned in my earlier post, if you need to handle noise put at the very top of the pp steps.
 
I always do noise reduction ( via Denoise ) last.
And only when it looks like it might be an improvement on the final process.
Although having said that, occasionally I might add a touch of USM after, again, if it looks like it may bring out a little more detail.
 
Another thing to consider.

When working with raw files all(?) editing software, as you work through the editing steps is creating a "recipe of instructions" that are not acted upon until you export/save the file as a JPEG or other format. Working on JPEGs is on the other hand fraught with pp hurdles.........

However, depending on your jpeg workflow you risk baking in changes that you can't undo. So unless you expect to finish the pp and "save as" in a single session, only work on a copy of the jpeg.

Plus, by working on a copy......you avoid the potential risk of saving your editing over the original and destroying any opportunity to try another edit as a comparison!
 
It doesn't matter what order you do things as long as the edits are non-destructive; or if you go back and re-do some of the edits again.
But if the image is going to be de-noised in another program it should be done last... because at that point the image is saved with all of the edits applied destructively/permanently.

If your biggest concern is image noise (it shouldn't be IMO), then you probably want to do your noise reduction/sharpening as the first step ("capture sharpening"); and then monitor it to ensure edits (i.e. exposure/clarity) do not adversely affect the image. This is basically the system I use because my default edits are automatically applied to raw files when opened in LR (by camera serial and ISO setting).

PSE/ACR has the same ability to apply user defaults to a raw file as LR does. But Affinity does not have that kind of functionality (for raw files); you have to create and select a user preset for each of the editing tabs instead (or just manually edit every image).
 
Noise removal is 1st, there's heaps of threads on here going back years. Why edit a noisy image?
 
I edit my images in any random order. Sometimes I don't sharpen or denoise them, but that could be because I still use film.
 
admirable said:
Noise removal is 1st, there's heaps of threads on here going back years. Why edit a noisy image?
Click to expand...
Because image noise isn't the most important aspect of an image?
The only time I pay attention to sharpening or noise reduction at the beginning is if I am trying to decide if the image is worth editing at all... which is rare; because if it's questionable they don't usually make it off the card.
I let my defaults apply some sharpening and noise reduction upon loading an image... just settings close to where I usually wind up; I don't really worry about them. And then at/near the end I do the output sharpening/noise reduction... I don't let the program apply sharpening presets on output; I want to know what it's going to look like before it's output/saved.
 
Cameras (that produce the material we have to work with) are so good these days ...

But LR, for example, will apply a default measure of sharpening and NR after import, unless set up not to. Currently, I'm experimenting with having set both defaults to zero. This is despite my tendency to expose conservatively to protect highlights, and so to excavate shadows & mid-tones somewhat in processing.

All this is given that I rarely print over 24" wide (or high).

But when to apply NR? I've always assumed that in non-destructive raw processsing, the order of operations is immaterial, since the app doesn't truly perform its synthesis until the time of export?

And if so, is the same not true of working on a tif, say, with adjustment layers in PS?

As for sharpening (USM), my procedure has always been to do it, if at all, only at a specific image output (print) size.
 
I've always used the LR tools in order from top to bottom as that's the order in which I assume Adobe intended them to be used for whatever reason. I've recently started using Topaz Denoise for wildlife and now I am wondering what the best order is. I would assume that I would process an image normally in LR (i.e. crop, WB, exposure, saturation etc) and then export it to Topaz as a last step because it creates a TIF file using all the LR edits too. But then, when is the best time to sharpen in LR? I want to say denoise before sharpen, so perhaps change the LR sharpening to 0 before exporting to Topaz, then sharpen the TIF file in LR afterwards? No idea if this is correct but it makes sense in my head... Anyone able to advise?
 
I tend to do sharpening & NR as a 1st step because it's easy to get caught in a "the clarity slider does my sharpening" mentality. Any modifications done to the image by previous edits (contrast - either by curves, sliders, or the clarity tool) are often multiplied by sharpening. I've found that by doing sharpening and NR to begin with, I have less of a need for fine contrast editing and can focus on my general requirements from the edit.

I suspect there's no "right way" to do it, just the way that suits your workflow best and will depend quite a bit on how heavily you tend to edit your images.
 
admirable said:
Noise removal is 1st, there's heaps of threads on here going back years. Why edit a noisy image?
Click to expand...
Why? For the same reason we print grainy film images. Sometimes because the grain or noise is a part of the story that the image is telling. Sometimes because there would be no story to tell without tolerating the grain or noise.

It is the story that is important, not grain with film, not noise with digital, not tack sharpness in the corners, not any of the other bogeyman people come up with.
 
droj said:
But when to apply NR? I've always assumed that in non-destructive raw processsing, the order of operations is immaterial, since the app doesn't truly perform its synthesis until the time of export?
Click to expand...
the app might not apply the edit instructions until export but it must still apply them one at a time so the order will still matter.
 
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