Sharpening: Before or after noise reduction?
Rather27
Registered Users Posts: 115 Major grins
Just wanted to get opinions on workflow...do you all sharpen before or after you deal with noise issues in a photo?
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I think that depends on the image, to a certain extent.
I use LR2/Adobe Camera Raw for my Raw processing, and I do perform fairly aggressive Capture Sharpening on my RAW images. ( The noisier they are, the less aggressive I am, for the reasons already discussed in this thread ) I rarely use the Noise Reduction in ACR, because it just isn't that good in my hands. By the time it has reduced noise very much, it has cost too much image detail for my taste. Adobe says the Noise Reduction coming in Lightroom 3 is "State of the Art" I certainly hope so, and will use it in LR3 if it is, in conjunction with Capture Sharpening.
I frequently do not globally reduce noise for my entire image. I usually create a copy of the working layer, and run NoiseWare on the selected areas of the image that need noise reduction. Frequently this is just the blue area of the sky in a large pano that I want to be noiseless if possible. Selections can be done with the Quick Select Tool, via Quick Mask, or other selections tools. The rest of the image may not need any noise reduction, and, hence I do not do a lot of global noise reduction in my images. I will follow this step with either some local contrast enhancement or a high pass filter for sharpening as I examine the image.
If I am printing on my Epson inkjet, in Lightroom2, I will perform moderate to strong output sharpening in the print panel of Lightroom. If I am having large prints made by one of smumgug's vendors, I will leave output sharpening up to them. I have numerous prints from EZprints, and Bay Photo that are quite acceptable in sharpness with this workflow.
I do not try to rescue unacceptable, out of focus images in Photoshop however. I never allow them to escape from my camera.
My approach to noise may not match your needs or desires. I shoot a lot of scenes that I am adding noise into, so take my workflow with a grain of salt, if your desire is a perfectly flawless complexion. I find many images up to ISO 1600 quite acceptable in print, but sometimes I reduce the noise in skies at ISO 100. I believe this is up to the artist's desire. I am not always consistent about noise either.
Generally it is suggested to reduce noise before sharpening an image, but this is a guideline without much discussion of what kind of sharpening, and for what purpose.
I am looking forward to LR3 which will let us see the sharpening and the noise reduction simultaneously, as metadata editing, so that we can adjust both to our taste before moving on into Photoshop.
Moderator of the Technique Forum and Finishing School on Dgrin
Always apply noise reduction first, then capture sharpening. Otherwise you sharpen the noise.
Note, in good raw converters (certainly Adobe’s) the order doesn’t matter, the proper routines are applied in the correct, optimized order in the processing chain.
Author "Color Management for Photographers"
http://www.digitaldog.net/
Have you seen PhotoKit Sharpener? this looks to be an awesome program that allows for both and it's non destructive, using layers to control the original...
noise before sharpen does make sense though!
I'll be using NoiseWare instead of ACR on a duplicate layer of the original, so via layer masking I'll be able to select which areas of the photo get noise adjustment.
I work on many HDR photos and selective noise adjustment is essential! Thanks!
Like you I do use selections on a layer for Noise reduction, and that can also be done for sharpening as well. I did not state that specifically in my earlier post, but I certainly do that from time to time depending on the needs of the image.
I have both Photokit Sharpener, and Sharpener Pro 3.0, but rarely use either of them, since my present workflow seems to meet my needs.
Speaking of HDR images, I find myself adding a bit of noise to them at times..... I like your avatar. Old trucks are cool!
I have been hoping to hear about noise reduction in LR3, but those who do know and post here, have signed a non-disclosure agreement and are honoring it, it seems.
Moderator of the Technique Forum and Finishing School on Dgrin
Conventional wisdom says that you perform the NR first.
Some experts have suggested sharpening first under some circumstances, but those situations are probably best left to the experts.
However, just to be (constructively) provocative I'll suggest that it doesn't matter, at least with my workflow. In general, I apply NR with a surface mask. And I apply most sharpening with an edge mask. So these two operations are applied to different parts of the image.
Now, that is a bit of an over simplification because there are times that you wish to sharpen surface textures for example. Nevertheless...
The single most important lesson I have learned is to always apply NR and/or sharpening selectively. This is by far the best way to ensure that your NR software doesn't clobber wanted detail. And to avoid sharpening and hence exacerbating noise in the shadows, skies, or other surfaces that should be rendered silky smooth.
Personally, I like edge and surface masks although a simple painted/selected mask can suffice for many images. If you do create a mask by painting or selection just remember to add a little Gaussian blur to the mask to avoid any inappropriate hard edges.
So, when you first open and evaluate your images, think about which areas need NR if any, and which areas/items need sharpening. Then... use the mask, Luke ;-)
Sharpening is my very last step prior to saving my finished file.............
I do think that Neat Image does a rather nice job with images that have had sharpening in that it is so "tunable" that you can retain the required detail while identifying and removing genuine random sensor noise. (Neat Image allows tuning the algorithms by several criteria including the noise distribution by color channel, by noise frequency distribution and by selection.) I also believe that up-sampling from ACR prior to PS gives the noise reduction routines more data from which to make a better correction.
So my routine varies depending on the particular image, the areas that need sharpening and the degree of sharpening.
If I'm sharpening skin tones or smooth sky (for example), I tend to stay away from sharpening that requires LAB, because even in 16/48 bit mode I see occasional visible artifacts resulting from the translation to and from LAB color space.
Moderator of the Cameras and Accessories forums
"Don't worry when you are not recognized, but strive to be worthy of recognition."
-- Abraham Lincoln
Adobe Camera RAW
It's a RAW file format pre-processor to Lightroom and Photoshop.
Moderator of the Cameras and Accessories forums
Or Adobe Camera Raw (since raw isn’t an acronym and the Adobe engineers and product mangers hate when we use RAW (or PhotoShop). ;-)
Author "Color Management for Photographers"
http://www.digitaldog.net/
So do I. Works very well IMO.
I'd just like to add that useing ALL of those sliders in the details panel of ACR makes a big difference in capture sharpening results. Masking more for noisy images and less for cleaner images.....using a lower radius on cropped images and a higher radius on full frame images....and viewing at 100% while using the ALT key to see the image in grayscale while appling the amount of sharpening are extremely important IMO.
Usually, on wildlife images, a little selective local contrast enhancement and a bit of USM on the final flattened image are all I need after leaving ACR.
I knew that, I had a brain fart last night...When I saw the reply, I was like...well, DUH!
"Don't worry when you are not recognized, but strive to be worthy of recognition."
-- Abraham Lincoln
I agree, the masks created on the fly are a great tool. View at 100%.
You can also hold down the Alt key while correcting chromatic aberration as well, to see the image rendered in Magenta/ Green or Blue /Yellow
Moderator of the Technique Forum and Finishing School on Dgrin
I find it helpful sometimes, but not as much as using the mask in sharpening. Sometimes it is just easier to view the image at 300% or more, and look for the CA. But it can be helpful at times.
Moderator of the Technique Forum and Finishing School on Dgrin
Ditto!