What method match noise in existing photo to added image ?

[Merlin3]

Hi,

I have a link saved to the answer but old links from 10 yrs ago or so are no longer functional, forum wasnt called ecosystem, whatever that actually means !....so start again !

I have taken an extract of a figure from one photo and pasted it into another image beside a boat, scaled to correct height, it doesnt belong, despite blurring edges and giving same blur overall, and matching HSL,  it needs to have the same amount of grain or noise as the image its now in, its lacking such.

There is 'add noise' but it has no control over size of the noise, or pattern. it gives too fine a noise with well defined edges to each pixel, its like coloured sand versus pebbles.

I try for monochromatic which at least removes the unauthentic coloured single pixels nothing like any image I have seen, certainly this one. It has no blur of the noise either which the command also could do with.

With that its nothing like the larger noise visible in the boat image next to my addition. boat noise more like a pot of fishermans maggots by comparison.

I look for the control over the noise size, there is none, even in latest Photoshop as a friend looks and finds its not changed in 20 years. I am CS6.

Now this is basic fundamental stuff, anyone adding one image into another needs this control. yet still Adobe havent got it.

I do add one image into another and dread this stage as they dont match, needing noise controls.

I think someone showed me how to sample the recipient photo and apply its noise size and noise pattern to the incoming image,. Links dont work anymore forum broken them.

So how does one sample the boat noise and apply its pattern and size to the incoming image of a human ?

image attached

Cheers

Merlin

[Stephen_A_Marsh]

@Merlin3 

What you mention sounds like finding a large flat area of an image grain with no/little contrast and then extracting the texture for blending with the high pass filter or other methods similar to "frequency separation". This could possibly be extended into a seamless pattern, however it would be good to have a large area for the pattern tile repeat so that the grain isn't noticeably repeated.

Back when I used to do a lot of retouching of drum scans in the early 2000's, I created a "Smart Noise" action, the last update that I made is here (feel free to fix my typo in the last action!):

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/r6jaovm3wz4u84pdidb9k/Smart-Noise-CS3.atn?rlkey=26oyqkhkz9jbo1do0xu6u...

The noise is applied to a 50% gray fill layer and blended in overlay mode to act like a faux adjustment layer. This also adds the benefit of tapering off the noise in the extreme highlights and shadows.

You can blur, sharpen or otherwise filter and manipulate the noise as required, adjust opacity, blend if sliders etc.

There is a 2:1 scale option, which you could easily make larger.

There are other filters/methods to add noise or grain (such as the Camera Raw Filter). You may need to combine multiple methods.

[Merlin3]

Hi Stephen,

Most grateful to you.

Will the downloaded SmartNoise CS3.atn file work in CS6 ?

I will try it out on my image, as you can see there is a uniform area of colour near him to sample. I can understand that if the recipient image is very mixed content than extracting the noise pattern and size could be tricky.

I would love to see tutorials on editing one image into another, they must solve the noise matching else the images will stick out like a sore thumb. Adobes 'add noise' is woefully short of whats needed. There should at the very least be a noise size slider and noise softener, as blurring the image isnt good. To know a bit more about how to add noise and use layers and other blending modes is something I need to do. I see one tut here but its having to use the sand grain size noise and its too simple and precise for whats needed if pebbles are more the size. variances in colour would also nbe useful, amazed Adobe have overlooked this filter all these years.

Feel free to try yours out on my sample I posted.

Merlin

[D Fosse]

I've found that the following formula usually works well for emulating standard sensor noise in an ISO 100-400 image:

1. Add noise amount 1.3 % luminance noise (monchromatic checked)
2. Add noise amount 1.0 % chroma noise (monochromatic unchecked)
3. Gaussian blur radius 0.2 or 0.3 pixels.

Sample at 200%:

(Edit - it obviously also depends on sensor resolution. The above works for 45 - 60 MP).

[Merlin3]

Hi,

Thanks D Fosse, I will also try that. and report back on how it looks.

Stephen, I am a little lost having run the action it creates a layer, but then...

not sure when in the process I get to select an area that needs sampling, in fact the boat has large areas of 'off white' (HSB 72%B)  to his left, with no detail on them., ideal for sampling.

How should I indicate the area to the action ?

Each action runs one step and stops. Not sure how I have the layer apply the effect over just him, etc.

Can you give me a step by step on this ?

Cheers

Merlin

[Stephen_A_Marsh]

Stephen, I am a little lost having run the action it creates a layer, but then...

not sure when in the process I get to select an area that needs sampling

By @Merlin3

It doesn't.

There were two separate parts to my previous reply.

In the first part, I commented on how one may extract a large flat area of grain using the "High Pass" filter, or by using a common retouching technique called "Frequency Separation". I expected that you would research these keyword clues for more information on these topics.

In the second part, I also commented that when I used to do a lot of retouching on scanned film that I had to work with grain and provided an action that I used to work with for you to explore. This action has no relationship to the first part of my post about "capturing existing grain from an image".

Both parts of my post are similar in that this introduces the concept of a "50% grey filled layer" and an "appropriate blending mode (overlay, soft light etc) where this value is treated as neutral/null, allowing tones lighter or darker than 50% to be applied to the underlying image independently of the base image.

Apologies for the confusion.

[Merlin3]

In the first part, I commented on how one may extract a large flat area of grain using the "High Pass" filter, or by using a common retouching technique called "Frequency Separation". I expected that you would research these keyword clues for more information on these topics.

Hi, I have looked at videos on both the High Pass filter and the Frequency Separation. In High pass he takes a copy of the image (girls face)  creating a smart object allowing adjustments thereafter etc and runs the high pass filter,. It accentuates and picks out detail texture areas. I can see this of use in my case picking out my grain in my sampled area of noise. So I think I am getting the idea of  that being applied over my human, overlay mode etc.

In the Frequency Separation a duplicate layer of the girls face is made, twice, one for texture and one for colour, then texture differences picked out, and on the colour layer Gaussian blur applied until any texture is gone, then the two are brought together as one influencing ‘add’ layer over the original image. Not sure I need the colour aspect though.

However my sampled area is small compared to the figure. Whilst in these vids the sampled area is same size.

I can’t see how my sample after high pass filter etc can be applied over a much larger image.

I could scale it far bigger but that’s not sampling the grain, the pot of maggots are now a pot of lobworms !

I was needing Pshop to take an area and sample the grain size and shape and then apply that to anything I wish, , many times bigger to the sample if need be.

What am I missing here. Does the action then do that , yes I get a screen full; of noise, its missing the soft nature though, very coarse, now wondering what actions make it match the boat.

Excuse me if I am being thick. I have never explored all these wondrous things, medium level editing, quickmasks, pasting between channels,  editing in channels, altering with levels, enough to edit things out or in, photomerge etc. actions to repeat steps I did, adjustment layers, raw adjustments, thats my lot. I can follow a step by step, makes sure anything I am expected to know about but haven’t experience of doesn’t end my journey.

And

Hi D Fosse.

I don’t see Luminance in the apply noise dialog box. However a friend with CC also only sees what I see.

I have a feeling those options are not available to me but to him with CC, puzzled.

Merlin

[D Fosse]

@Merlin3  sorry, I just meant the "monochromatic" checkbox.

It's not really pure chroma noise with the box unchecked - the point is just that the luminance component needs to be a bit stronger than the color component to look realistic.

[Stephen_A_Marsh]

One can also blend the layer or fade the filter to luminosity blend mode, which has a nice subtlety compared to monochromatic in some situations.

[Stephen_A_Marsh]

Thanks for doing the research, the journey will hopefully be more rewarding than the final destination.

You only need the high frequency layer for your noise/grain application, not the low frequency blurred layer.

I previously wrote regarding the grain capture:

"This could possibly be extended into a seamless pattern, however it would be good to have a large area for the pattern tile repeat so that the grain isn't noticeably repeated."

Your next research step will be on creating a square crop of the high pass filtered noise sample, making a seamless repeating pattern using the offset filter at half the  square width and height in px, retouching tools such as healing tools and define pattern and using pattern fills or stamp etc. There are countless tutorials to be found on this.

https://www.gamedeveloper.com/art/the-power-of-the-high-pass-filter

EDIT: I have uploaded a PDF archive of the original article, including images which helpfully illustrate the article.

[Merlin3]

Hi Stephen,

I got as far as this:-

1. sample an area of uniform colour and lightness, avoid shadows etc. there waaas such immediate left of the figure.

2. paste above the figure layer, name it noise and right click make smart object.

3. with that layer active run action, need click first line below action title. creates a grey looking layer, entire scene develops a fine grain noise.

4. magic wand outside of figure, sample all layers off.

5. use the selection made to delete the grey layer except for the figure.

thats the stage in attached image.

noise pattern different to the sample. Thinks now what ?

when action ran I didnt get to see wher it ran and stopped at. two red ticks obviously dont get run.

How do I get the noise like the area sampled. Surprised its not captured its subtleness size etc.

What didnt I do to cause the mismatch ?

what action in what is a long list, longer than that in the posted image, is next to be run ?

I havent the time to go trying to make a noise pattern that is seamless. Thats a make big enough to cover the subject route, whilst I was after a sampling gathers evidence on the pattern, size and softness route, hoping Pshop had clever processes to sample small and make a continuous effect from it. If the pattern is like a pot of maggots then a pattern that is random pixels of differing grey value isnt quite the same. see attached image.

D Fosse.

so your steps are:-

1. Add noise amount 1.3 %  (monchromatic checked) but is that uniform or gaussian ?
2. Add noise amount 1.0 % monochromatic unchecked, but is that uniform or gaussian.
3. Gaussian blur radius 0.2 or 0.3 pixels.
4. The GB also blurs my figure, so should I be applying those noises to a neutral grey layer over the top of the figure ? what blend mode is then applied to the layer ?

I ran with Gaussian each time rgb 140 140 140 and uniform, see results attached.

1.  

Again thats a random set of pixels, if the noise has some kind of pattern, then that wont replicate it. Not sure why noise could gain a pattern, but in my case its not so random. study the noise in the ship side and whaat was created on the trousers.

Merlin

[Stephen_A_Marsh]

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@Merlin3 wrote:

"What am I missing here. Does the action then do that , yes I get a screen full; of noise, its missing the soft nature though, very coarse, now wondering what actions make it match the boat."

---

I'd forget smart object layers for now if using my actions. My actions do not capture the original grain, they just generate new grain which may or may not be similar to the original.

My old noise actions and capturing grain are two separate topics. You seem to be intertwining them, when I have stated more than once that they are different things.

Run the "Smart Noise - New Layer" action, which is standard-sized noise.

Compare this to the "Smart Noise - New Layer 2:1 Scale" action. This could just as easily be 3:1 or 4:1 etc.

You can then manipulate this noise layer further, by blurring it slightly or whatever you like. It's not always about perfectly matching the existing grain, if you add new grain to the entire image which is slightly stronger than the original grain both the original grain image and the new composited image will often have enough texture to appear uniform, or at least more realistic than it was beforehand.

"I havent the time to go trying to make a noise pattern that is seamless. Thats a make big enough to cover the subject route, whilst I was after a sampling gathers evidence on the pattern, size and softness route, hoping Pshop had clever processes to sample small and make a continuous effect from it."

---

That's the process of making a seamless repeating pattern tile. This isn't a "one button click" feature (an action could make it so if you do this often enough). There are multiple steps and many web page tutorials, video tutorials etc.

[Stephen_A_Marsh]

Here is a very quick example of artificial noise, in this case with a 4:1 sized noise layer. Perhaps 6:1 or 8:1 would be better... But the idea here is to magnify the noise, blur it etc. Adobe Camera Raw or the Camera Raw Filter can also add noise/grain to scale.

Is it a 100% match? No! Is it better? I would say yes...

My background is prepress, when printed using an AM or FM screen, the noise result is closer to viewing at 25% than it is at 100% in Photoshop where 1 image pixel is mapped to 1 monitor pixel.

I have attached a layered PSD for clarity.