Grain / noise on CR3 photos from Canon R5

[Pieter5C17]

Hello, I notice high levels of grain/noise in photos with low ISO settings (100-125). Compared to Other editors/viewers its quite bad, resulting in soft photos. (Not optimal sharp). I found multiple boards with the same problem,  Is there a fix for this problem?

[wanderingcrow]

I noticed the same thing. I've been a Lightroom user since Aperture folded, the new Lightroom has a clean interface, the iPadOS companion app is great, and I love the cloud sync feature, but if I'm forced to choose between my camera and Lightroom...

There are $15 camera profiles you can buy (since Adobe won't/can't provide them). These help but don't fix the problem. I'm likely to switch to Capture One. 

It will suck, but Lightroom (for me) was the last tool keeping me on Creative Cloud. Affinity has come out with really solid answers for InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop. Lightroom and the cloud sync was the only thing keeping me from moving. 

Please post back if you or anyone else finds the answer, it's been really frustrating. 

[wanderingcrow]

I contacted tech support. According to the tech, this is a known issue and the R5 is not supported at the moment. I pointed him to Adobe release information that said the R5 was supported, and he insisted that it is NOT supported. 

<sigh> 

[KDJ Imagery and Graphics]

Greetings,

I am a newbie here on Adobe Stock and also sort of new to selling my imagery as stock. I use Lightroom 6 and I saw this thread concerning the noisy images. I'm not very familiar with the Canon R5, I'm thinking it's a mirrorless camera yes? 

I thought I'd give you some suggestions on what the problem may be or rather to see if I could help in any way. I myself don't use the Lightroom batch upload thing a mobob, I usually only upload about 5-6 images at a time using the upload from your computer feature. You may wish to try and upload an image you think may be excessively noisy, as a single upload via this feature. If it still appears to be bad then it may be something to do with your camera or software program. 

One thing I know is I am using Windows 10 and for the last year I've had nothing but trouble with all of my software programs working properly. They indicate they have an update available, yet they won't reach out and grab it! I had to download a part of Adobe CC to force my Lightroom software to work properly. 

One other suggestion would be, if you could do so, I would suggest shooting with a different camera and seeing if the problem went away. Even if you couldn't afford to rent one, you could take your memory card to a local camera store and see if they would let you try shooting some images with a demo model and explain the problem you are having and see what they suggest. Hope this helps! 

Cheers,

Keith J.

[Pieter5C17]

Hi! We (adobe support) and me checked Sony high MP images as well and noticed the same problem. They made some changes and it approved somewhat. Still you need to set an amount of noise reduction, I standard set 35%. It won't influence the sharpness of the photo. 

Future updates will help as well.

[KDJ Imagery and Graphics]

Greetings, I saw your reply and was wondering, what's the maximum file size allowed on here? Is it something like 40mp? When you say that you set the noise reduction to around 35%, are you referring to the noise reduction function in your camera settings or is that in your photo editing workflow? 

Noise can be a tricky problem to deal with. It could come from a number of things like the amount of contrast in the particular scene you are shooting (like a clear blue sky), or how you get a lot of noise from low contrast (like in shadow details). It could come from the type of lens you are using, have you tried shooting with a different lens to see if it changes?

How I deal with noise is having the noise reduction settings in my camera turned on to the maximum amount possible and like you, I shoot at 100-200 ISO, and when I edit them in Lightroom, I don't mess with the noise/sharpening functions at all but I add about 

+10% clarity to all my images. Also, when I convert my images to jpeg for uploading as stock, I set the sharpening setting during the exporting, to sharpen for glossy paper and I usually size my images at 16X24 (4800X7200). Another tip would be to go into the camera settings and do a factory reset and check that your camera/lenses are up to date via firmware updates. 

Apart from that I couldn't think of anything else that would be the problem. If your camera is still under the manufacture warranty, I'd get in touch with them and see if they could do a referb on it. Hope this helps in any way!

Cheers,

Keith J.  

[Pieter5C17]

Hi! Noise reduction on in camera, you shoot in jpg? As far as I know, it has no results when shooting in raw?

There was a raw profile update today, it looks like it somewhat improved. 

[KDJ Imagery and Graphics]

Greetings,

Yes, I shoot in Raw mode. It's much more forgiving than with jpeg! Especially with highlights/shadows. If you are familiar with shooting in Raw mode, I would highly recommend it. You have way more pixels that are in the Raw file, plus it's uncompressed. 

Plus on top of that I believe the Raw files are a little sharper than jpeg and probably a little less noisy. Although, you should be aware that when shooting in Raw, when you review the images in camera, it's a compressed jpeg that is taken from the actual Raw image. So it will look like how you wanted the outcome to be, however when you go to edit the Raw file it will not look like the image you shot when you reviewed in in the playback in camera.

There's a lot more involved when processing them in post! I'm sure you are probably aware of that though if you are familiar with Raw mode. 

Cheers,

Keith J. 

[Pieter5C17]

Thanks for the tip, I did not know that NR also worked with RAW. I always shoor RAW, never JPG.

[Klickflip]

Hi I have canon R5 here, and see large amounts of what looks like added (mainly monochromatic) noise / grain at low ISO too. Much like a grain overlay.

That is without doing any extra adjustments or sharpening that can bring out noise adversely. 

And higher 1600+iso show huge noise grain. 

This is Lightroom adding additional noise & grain I believe, not boosting native camera grain noise. 

Your suggestion of adding NR to 30% is not useable in professional circumstances , especially product photography. where I would expect ultra clean noise free images shot at 100 iso. 

Adding more than 5% NR adversely affects the sharpness and detail the R5 and decent lenses can capture . 

Is this an onging development ?

Back to Capture One Pro I guess where it's night and day in the noise  / shaprness. 

[Klickflip]

Try Capture One pro21 free trial for a month ... 😉

it's next level for clean and sharp files , plus the colour editors 

[Jorge15C3]

Thank you. I am trying Capture One Trial and the results are night and day. Images are so much sharper and crisp in Capture One! almost no noise at ISO 100. I was about to sell my EOS R5 and lenses. The problems is that I don't like Capture One as much as Lightroom.

[Jao vdL]

This is completely normal. Lightroom by standard applies very little noise reduction and sharpening. The in camera jpeg engine in most cameras very aggressively applies noise reduction and sharpening. Many file viewers simply show you the in camera jpeg which will have this noise reduction applied. What you are seeing in Lightroom is closer to the actual raw data and you generally will need to optimize the noise reduction and sharpening a bit. You can also change the defaults to be a bit more aggressive in noise reduction and sharpening, or alternatively change the default for the camera to use in camera settings (Preferences->Import->Raw defaults). For many cameras (don't know about the R5 but for my Z7 it does) this will pick up the noise reduction and sharpening settings from the camera instead of using the very soft Lightroom defaults.

[Ian Lyons]

Jao,

The Canon EOS R5 and R6 setttings for noise, sharpen, etc are not used by Adobe Camera Raw or the various versions Lightroom

[Jao vdL]

Thanks. Good to know. On my Z7 the settings are used - actually to my annoyance as they are far too aggressive with way too high sharpening radius that actually degrades detail in my images so I stopped using camera settings there.

[martyn_legge]

I have been using the r5 for just a week now.  I also use a 5dmk 4 and a 1dx mk 2.   I always shoot raw.  Even at low iso the noise in r5 images is poor in Lightroom cc when compared with the other cameras. Using exactly the same lenses.    I was about to send the r5 back thinking it was faulty but I tried using canons own raw processor. Digital photo professional.  The difference is astonishing.  Sharper, much better colour and no detectable noise at sensible iso levels.  I have not got to the bottom

of this yet but right now lightroom which has been the mainstay of my workflow for years is not doing a good job.  Dpp is horrible to use but out of the box it's giving much better results.  I live in hope that Adobe will fix this soon.  If not I'll be looking for alternatives.  

[Jao vdL]

I don't have an R5 so hard to test but it is certainly possible that the default noise reduction for the R5 is not set as well as other cameras in Lightroom. If you think that is the case you can easily and trivially set a default that applies more noise reduction by default on your raw files. You can also bring it up at https://feedback.photoshop.com where actual engineers hang out. Here we are just other users and can't do much to fix issues just help you work with Lightroom.

That said, I downloaded a few R5 raw files at different ISOs from https://www.dpreview.com/sample-galleries/7757595702/canon-eos-r5-sample-gallery/0449051777 and they look perfectly normal to me. Exactly what you expect for a modern high megapixel camera and no different from any of my modern cameras. Virtually no noise (but not nothing as that is impossible physically) at ISO 100 and a tiny bit at higher ISOs (expected from basic physics) that is easily gotten rid of by spending a few seconds optimizing the noise reduction and sharpening settings. Also I see no difference between the raw rendering in Lightroom vs the in-camera jpeg (at the same link) except a bit of difference in color rendering which is expected as they use different camera profiles (adobe apparently still hasn't provided camera-matching profiles for the R5!). To me it looks like the default noise reduction settings are pretty much correct and consistent with other cameras. 

Also downloaded a ISO3200 image (the one with the comet over the mountains) and you see more noise in the raw in Lightroom than in the jpeg but the jpeg is way oversmoothed with very ugly noise. The Lightroom version is far better in honest rendering of the noise and a few moves of the noise reduction and sharpening sliders (especially masking slider is important with high ISO images) get you way better results than the in-camera jpeg (identical to the DPP rendering by default)

[talentedmrjones]

I've had the same exact experience. When I first looked at my R5 photos in LR I felt sick to my stomach. I had made the very expensive switch from the Z7 to the R5 including all new glass, so seeing such awful levels of noise and poor rendering in Lightroom was so disapointing. I agree wholeheartedly that DPP4 produces amazing results, but the user experience is terrible. I think the camera manufacturers should recognize their strengths and weaknesses: they all suck at software. It'd be nice if they just worked with Adobe to get the right file handling built in to Lightroom.

[wanderingcrow]

When the newest update came out (last week?) I pulled up one of the files I had been using to show the noise to with Adobe support, and it's MUCH cleaner. Try the update and see if it helps you too on your R5 files. 

At the end of the day, for me, Capture One does a better job of processing R5 photos, but I really like the new Lightroom and I love the workflow where all my photos are saved in the cloud. Obviously, use whatever tool you want, but for now I'm going to stick with Lightroom. 

That said, Canon really needs to address this. I returned my first R5 because I thought it was borked and thought long and hard about returning the second one even after I knew it was Lightroom's fault. 

[Pieter5C17]

I processed several photos after the update, its 100% better. Not totally
clean yet but good enough (i am not a 200% zoom pixel peeper)

[Klickflip]

Hi, I posted recently about this , with tests comparing LR and DPP 
now tested with `capture one pro 21 , it's night and day . 
much more  noiseless and sharper files. 
I said it before, LR is applying some extra noise grain over (all) files compared to Capture one pro . 

I want to use light room as it would be one less software to pay for ... 

but C1 is miles ahead , for R5 anyway . 
To be fair , I have used c1 as man in processor for years , and Lightroom classic and mobile for some personal , family , holiday photos . As I can import and edit them on my iPad. Which is the only real benefit over C1 . 
but the file structure and catalogue still does my head in compared to c1 sessions . 

pkus the new highlights /' shadows / whites ' blacks control on C1 is sublime for naturally eeking the most out of  raws , without images looking like to heavy HDR. 

[wanderingcrow]

@Klickflip just out of curiousity, did you use the new LR or LR Classic? And is LR updated? 

I did C1 for a short time after getting my R5, but just did the month-to-month subscription and let it go when the new LR seemed to fix my problems. If C1 is still giving better files though...

[Jao vdL]

RTo any of the folks seeing bad noise with R5 files, can you share a few files and perhaps post screenshots of what you're seeing? Also please make sure to post the exact version number of Lightroom or Lightroom Classic that you are using. I do not own this camera but downloaded a bunch of low and high ISO images from this camera from dpreview and see nothing like what you describe. Just exactly what you expect from a modern high megapixel camera. About as good as comparable cameras from the same generation. Typically none of these images would need any messing with the detail sliders. Certainly nothing that looks like what is being described here so I am really curious. 

[Ian Lyons]

See my response in https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic/canon-r5-noise-amp-grain-with-lightroom-vs-dpp-wow/...

With an example from my own R5 (400 ISO image shown in above linked post). I find that with default settings, Lightroom Classic (LrC) displays the level of noise that I expect  for a high megapixel camera whereas DPP 4 appears noise free, albeit not as sharp looking as LrC. However, if I set DPP 4 noise to '0', the difference between LrC and DPP 4 in terms of noise and sharpness is marginal. Furthermore, reducing the shapening 'Detail' slider in LrC from default setting of 25 to 10 effectively closes the gap.

[Jao vdL]

Hey Ian, this looks exactly like what I would expect. DPP is just being (to my taste) overly aggressive in its noise reduction. Your DPP=0 image holds far better detail than the default noise reduction one which looks washed over. The noise is also exactly like what you expect from a ISO400 shot on a high megapixel modern camera. Either way even if you prefer the look of the default dpp image, it would be trivial to mimic this with a simple preset in Lightroom. This also only matters for gigantic prints where the noise retaining image actually might look better if nothing else was done to it.