Grainy results! Why?

[thomasb35374208]

After editing photos for years with Corel products I started a subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud because "everybody" uses it.  My results suck!  I have gone back to Corel and given up on Adobe.  I just tried Adobe LR again and same thing, after doing simple edits (crop, lighten, darken, dehaze) the result is a picture which such evident grain that I would consider it unusable for anything larger than an 8"x10"!  If I were doing something really exotic, I would think I've got a step in the process wrong, but I'm doing simple edits by moving a slider up or down and rarely to the extremes of it's range.  I'm using good equipment all the way through the chain: Nikon D7500 and D750, Nikkor lenses, a powerful and current computer and latest updates on the software.  I shoot both RAW and large JPEG's and really the same end result.  Why the crappy results?

[JP Hess]

It's difficult to answer that question because you haven't displayed your export results or what you have used for your criteria for printing, etc. I use a far inferior Nikon camera, the D7100, and have printed, at home, as large as 13 x 19" prints with excellent results. I have had lab prints as large as 16 x 20, again with excellent results. All processing was completed with Lightroom. Not sure what your problem might be.

[Henrik Helmers]

Like JimHess writes it is not easy to answer without more detail. There is no magic inside Adobe nor Corel products. You may be pushing the image too hard with dehaze, shadow recovery or sharpening. If the original image really is grainy then maybe some noise reduction is necessary. Also check you haven't added the grain effect.

[thomasb35374208]

Hello and thanks for responding. I would be happy to provide more detail in order for anyone to detect what may be happening that I wind up with such grainy results. As stated earlier, I do not think I’m over adjusting the parameters I’m tweaking. Rarely do I go over a quarter of the range of the sliders I’m moving. But if there were certain measures that would be critical to know in order to diagnose what’s happening, let me know what those might be and I’ll fill in the blanks. I could also provide before and after files for analysis.

[JP Hess]

It would be good if you could share one of your images along with showing the adjustments you have made using Lightroom. It would also be helpful if you could indicate how large the image is (in pixels), and what your parameters are for printing. Without knowing such information, it's difficult to provide any constructive suggestions.