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Known Participant
February 22, 2022
Question

removing photo color noise

  • February 22, 2022
  • 4 replies
  • 384 views

It's very interesting how easy it is to see color noise in a photo but something else to remove it without degrading the picture.  I was using an older camera one warm night at Momo lake and took several long exposures of the tufa and north star.  I've included two screen shots of the foreground and stars where you can see lots of color noise.  Yes I've played around a lot with "dust and Scratches" and can't remove the color noise without degrading the picture.  If I use 4-5 radius in "Dust and Sratches" I can get rid of the noise but soften the tufa and wipe out about half of the star trails.  The color noise is obvious to the eye.  It's also pretty obvious when you look at the channels.  I've tried a bunch of other stuff trying to create a mask for the noise with little luck.  If anyone has any suggestions I would appreciate it.

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4 replies

Jumpenjax
Community Expert
Community Expert
February 22, 2022

You can use the clone tool or the patch tool.

Lee- Graphic Designer, Print Specialist, Photographer
Jeff Arola
Community Expert
Community Expert
February 22, 2022

That seems more like the noise one gets from long exposures rather than the color noise seen in standard exposure photos.

 

Does your camera have a Long Exposure Noise Reduction setting?

Semaphoric
Community Expert
Community Expert
February 22, 2022

One possibility would be convert to L*a*b, blur the a and b channels (leaving L as is), and convert back to RGB.

 

TheDigitalDog
Inspiring
February 22, 2022

If you shot this in raw, that's where to try NR; the raw converter. Are you using ACR or Lightroom?

Author “Color Management for Photographers" & "Photoshop CC Color Management/pluralsight"