How Do I Get Rid of Grain?

[cancidas]

so of course i managed to screw up shooting the other day and had my ISO set a little too high (320 instead of 200). as a result most of my shots from the day came out pretty grainy. due to the operating schedule of the airplanes that i'm dealing with i'm not even sure that i'll get a second chance to shoot what i shot. there any way to get rid of grain from my shots? i've read of neatimage but don't have it and don't realy know how it works.

[PhilDernerJr]

The only real effective way of getting rid of grain is to switch to Canon.

[stuart schechter]

I second the above.

[wunaladreamin]

Don't listen to those two hoopels! I use Noise Ninja (http://www.picturecode.com) and it's great, but if you don't want to fork over the dough, or crack it, try this in PS:

Filters/Noise/Reduce Noise

I use...
Strength 1-4 (play around with this. Zoom in and look at the area in the dialogue for results)
Preserve Details 20%
Reduce Colour Noise 30%
Sharpen Details 16%

There's not that many of us Nikon users...we gotta stick together. One for all and all for one and three for five!!!

[T-Bird76]

The only real effective way of getting rid of grain is to switch to Canon.

wow very scary the two of us think alike...I was going to post the exact samething before reading this...but yes first get a Canon and second shoot in a lower ISO.

Really though Matt you can't reduce grain if its already there. Shoot in a lower ISO next time and always do a preshoot check...just like a preflight check before going out and shooting.

[NIKV69]

The only real effective way of getting rid of grain is to switch to Canon.


This is simply propaganda. The newer generation Nikon stuff is excepional with grain now and If I remember correctly Matt shoots with a D70 and I still use my 70 as a backup and to shoot with my 400mm and at 200 ISO I never get any grain, even when I bumped it up a bit. In fact I don't think I have ever had a grain rejection since I have been uploading. My D200 also is great in the grain deptartment if I choose to jack up the ISO for any reason. So I wouldn't rush to the camera store just yet.

To answer your question Matt try to keep your D70 at 200 ISO (which is the lowest) and also try to keep the shutter as slow as you can while not getting any blur and not overexposing it. I have found any grain issues I have had have been with I tried to really jack up the shutter speed for whatever reason. This just leads to a result that doesn't look very natural anyway and unless you are shooting something really fast action there is no reason for it.

[T-Bird76]

The only real effective way of getting rid of grain is to switch to Canon.
This is simply propaganda.

We were joking Nick....

[cancidas]

Don't listen to those two hoopels! I use Noise Ninja (http://www.picturecode.com) and it's great, but if you don't want to fork over the dough, or crack it, try this in PS:

Filters/Noise/Reduce Noise

I use...
Strength 1-4 (play around with this. Zoom in and look at the area in the dialogue for results)
Preserve Details 20%
Reduce Colour Noise 30%
Sharpen Details 16%

There's not that many of us Nikon users...we gotta stick together. One for all and all for one and three for five!!!
thanks, i'll give that a try once i'm getting down to edditing. i've reset my ISO back to 200, just completely forgot to change it and didn't even notice that it was at 320 until i put the pix on my computer. wish the screen on the D70 was bigger dammit!

[PhilDernerJr]

Is ISO200 really the lowest that your camera will go? I thought Nikon did away with that as the minimum.

[NIKV69]

Is ISO200 really the lowest that your camera will go? I thought Nikon did away with that as the minimum.


Yes unfortunatley the D70 could only go as low as 200 ISO.

[moose135]

Do you have anything else going on there, Matt? It just seems that ISO 320 shouldn't give you that much noise. It's not really a "high" ISO.

[adam613]

It's not so easy to get rid of noise in an existing image without sacrificing a lot of sharpness, but in the future, make sure you don't underexpose your shots no matter what ISO you're shooting at. You get a lot more noise in shadow areas of the image...you get a lot fewer shadow areas if you overexpose by 1/3 stop, and the overexposure is easy to fix in Photoshop.

[PhilDernerJr]

I think under exposing is much easier to correct in Photoshop using levels, whereas overexposure makes the aircraft blown out, making you lose all detail in the bright areas with little or no chance of bringing it back out.

[pgengler]

Phil, it depends on how overexposed (or underexposed) the original photo is. It's certainly possible (and in some cases, easy) to end up with blown-out highlights in a photo, but you can also end up underexposing too much and losing detail in the shadow areas, also with no chance for recovery. Generally, it's less grainy/noisy to overexpose the original (without blowing out highlights) and bring it down in postprocessing than it is to underexpose the original (again, without completely losing shadow detail) and bring it up.

As far as choice of ISO, I've always tried to keep my camera on one of the full-stop speeds (100, 200, 400, etc.). I've found the intermediate 1/3 stops to be nosier/grainier than the higher full-stop. I've heard this is because the camera doesn't actually "do" the intermediate speeds; it just adjusts the shutter speed/aperture for the 'right' exposure for that speed, takes the picture at the next lower full-stop speed and then does its own processing to bring up the exposure on the resulting image. In good sunlight, I've come away with better images at ISO 400 than with ISO 250 or 320.

[moose135]

As far as choice of ISO, I've always tried to keep my camera on one of the full-stop speeds (100, 200, 400, etc.). I've found the intermediate 1/3 stops to be nosier/grainier than the higher full-stop. I've heard this is because the camera doesn't actually "do" the intermediate speeds; it just adjusts the shutter speed/aperture for the 'right' exposure for that speed, takes the picture at the next lower full-stop speed and then does its own processing to bring up the exposure on the resulting image. In good sunlight, I've come away with better images at ISO 400 than with ISO 250 or 320.
I haven't experimented with it, but I've read the same about intermediate ISO settings - the camera interpolates those settings, you don't get a true ISO at those levels.