Question about Noise

[Candice]

Hello!

I have a question about noise. I have been shooting in Raw and have noticed that there is more noise in the photos since I switched from RAW to JPG. It is normal to have more noise when shooting in RAW?

Like here is a picture with ISO at 100 indoors with the flash used. The second picture is with Noise reduced.

I don't think I noticed it as much using it outdoors with out a flash. Just indoors with a flash.


Thanks

[Candice]

I just took another picture with another lense still in RAW..

Here is what it looks at at 400 with NO flash RAW.

I forgot to mention I have a 20D.

The flower picture was taken on June 3rd. It was ISO 400 NO flash JPG

[drg]

Candice,

A few questions regarding your noise issue;
- How are you converting from RAW to JPEG including what quality 1-12 are you selecting or do you have a converter that will output JPEG 2000(can be lossless)?
- What image quality are you selecting for the JPEG in the camera?
- Are you doing any other adjustments to the images, including resizing? All of these can introduce noise. If the output from your RAW conversion at the highest level of JPEG or TIFF is showing noise, it probably is a situation where the light is low enough that more illumination (flash ) would fix it. This is why you are probably not seeing the same thing under sunlight. Also make sure your White Balance is set properly or that when you rebalance that you pick an appropriate sample.

There is an increase in noise as you increase the ISO sensitivity in a Digital Camera, but with the 20d unless you have really low light, I'm wondering if your conversion to JPEG is simply the issue.
Are you using an external flash, what lens, filters (lose 'em for testing), etc?

By the way, good looking bird, the bird post in Viewfinder I think needs more parrots.

With a little more info I might be able to give you a more definite answer.

-C

[Candice]

Candice,

A few questions regarding your noise issue;
- How are you converting from RAW to JPEG including what quality 1-12 are you selecting or do you have a converter that will output JPEG 2000(can be lossless)?
- What image quality are you selecting for the JPEG in the camera?
- Are you doing any other adjustments to the images, including resizing? All of these can introduce noise. If the output from your RAW conversion at the highest level of JPEG or TIFF is showing noise, it probably is a situation where the light is low enough that more illumination (flash ) would fix it. This is why you are probably not seeing the same thing under sunlight. Also make sure your White Balance is set properly or that when you rebalance that you pick an appropriate sample.

There is an increase in noise as you increase the ISO sensitivity in a Digital Camera, but with the 20d unless you have really low light, I'm wondering if your conversion to JPEG is simply the issue.
Are you using an external flash, what lens, filters (lose 'em for testing), etc?

By the way, good looking bird, the bird post in Viewfinder I think needs more parrots.

With a little more info I might be able to give you a more definite answer.

-C

For quality from converting RAW to JPG I am I am to HIGHEST (I guess that is either 10 or 12 I can't remember I am using PSCS2)

For in Camera I was using the highest quality for JPG.. I am using the highest for RAW too.

I just did AUTO adjustments in the CAMERA RAW. Then for Resizing I resized to 640 to show you all. But you could see the noise before then.



Let me check if a TIFF is showing the noise as much..
Humm.. Well I tried resizing in PSP 9 and in PS3 (too lazy to wait for PSCS2 to open ) And What a difference!! You can see the same picture attached and it doesn't really have that HIGH amount of noise it did before after resizing.
Is it just PSP that is causing it?
The second photo is of a tiff resized in PSE3 turned to JPG

The repair place in Vancouver that is authorized by cannon to cover under warranty when I contacted them said They are not able to do any repairs other then CMD cleaning at this time and to contact Calgary.

And Thank you for the complements on one of our birds.. she is a ham for the cameras The whole time I have one of cameras out she is going, beep beep.. beep beep.. then posing

[Norfindel]

Check the resizing algorithm when resizing images, Bicubic is the best in Photoshop.
In the first two pictures it's possible to see the pixels composing the pen border, that's because of a bad algorithm.
Images softens when you reduce it's size, so noise will tend to diminish and not to increase.

[Candice]

It is set to Bicubic in PSP & PS. I don't see why it would be so different.

[drg]

It is set to Bicubic in PSP & PS. I don't see why it would be so different.

It shouldn't be very much different. Check the AUTO parameters in Canon RAW to make sure that is not stepping on your quality by down sizing the photo using a different algorithm as Norfindel noted.

Are you using the Canon RAW plug-in with ADOBE RAW or the Canon Software? I'd be tempted to bring the CR2 file directly into PS or with PSE/3 and go from there. If the noise is not appearing in one of your software choices, its obviously noise introduced from software and not the camera.

As Norfindel said the 'jaggies' on the pen are kind of a dead giveaway as to where the problem is occuring, now just to find the 'Magic' settings you need.

Best wishes and update us on your progress.

[Candice]

How do I check that please?

Because I have been having another issue when printing with the 20D's pictures. I have had this issue since I had the camera but have not printed many photos form the 20D so always forget about it.



See example here. This was TFF picture NO COMPRESSION used in this scrapbook layout. BUT it does do the same thing with the JPG. I have printed 3 pictures and they all turn out like this.


I know it is not my printer because all the rest of the photo is fine. Also when I edited a photo and added a filter to it, There was no effect like this even though it was a 20D photo.
Also all my Sony V3 photos do not look like this when printed.


(this photo was scanned in and it looked exactly like this in person except the color is a little off)

[Candice]

Hello!

I am still having a big problem with noise. Any help would be much appreciated. How do I check those auto parameters in the camera?
I am shooting in RAW with the best quality and the quality is HORRIBLE! i am starting to be VERY disappointed in my 20D Please can someone help. I know this is a great camera I just need help with this problem.

Lately I have been opening & saving with PSE3 and saving most of the photos as JPG 12 Quality. Like I said before I was getting better results shooting in JPG on camera and saving at 10 quality.


Thanks!
Candice

[EOSThree]

I can't really see the noise problems you are talking about in the first photos of the bird you posted. I see the background blur speckled, that is not noise it is a function of the lens you are using. With the large aperture you must be using, the background is blured, the particular lens you are using doesn't really have very nice OOF quality IMO, kind of grainy. That is what I am seeing in all of your photos, the background blur(bokeh)is kind of grainy. The only photo that is really showing noise to me is the second one of the gray you took before noise reduction. I think you would see the exact same thing with film and the lens(lenses)you used. The noise reduction certaily smoothed things out, but it also lost detail in the process. I think you are confusing noise(or grain in film)with OOF background(bokeh). Some lenses just don't do very well with bokeh, that is part of what costs so much with quality lenses, they usually have the background under control.

[drg]

Hello!

I am still having a big problem with noise. Any help would be much appreciated. How do I check those auto parameters in the camera?
I am shooting in RAW with the best quality and the quality is HORRIBLE! i am starting to be VERY disappointed in my 20D Please can someone help. I know this is a great camera I just need help with this problem.

Lately I have been opening & saving with PSE3 and saving most of the photos as JPG 12 Quality. Like I said before I was getting better results shooting in JPG on camera and saving at 10 quality.


Thanks!
Candice

Candice,

Sorry I did not get back sooner! The AUTO parameters are the conversion parameters in the RAW software converter you're using. I guess you are using Adobe with PSE3.

I'm not seeing exactly what you are looking at still. There's is some noise reduction needed in a couple of these (either despeckling or chrominance possibly). A couple of your photos show signs of poor sharpening. The radius looks off to me, but it's late. They may have been sharpened by a parameter you haven't found or looked for either as a result of a complex filter or conversion parameter. It often is advisable to selectively blur your photos (particularly non-detail areas) prior to any sharpening, even after noise corrections.

All of this is standard with these files to begin with. There is a lot more adjustment available and needed. But that's why its a raw file. Nothing has been done to it that you haven't done!

There are a a few thing to remember about working with RAW files:

1. They have not been sharpened, contrasted, w/b, color corrected or anything else.
2. Thus you need a digital workflow that you can repeat.
3. Some people like one RAW converter better than another to produce a file that they then edit and 'tweak' to perfection. There's always Camera RAW, the Canon Professional software, PhaseOne(expensive), the new Apple offering - Aperture, Bibble and so forth.
4. Saving both RAW and jpeg can give you a baseline to view and improve on.
5. Sharpening/Unsharpening (really accutance adjustment, but that is paragraphs of explanation) should be your last step. At least wise for a long long time.

There was comment made about bokeh and the lens you are using. I'm not sure at the moment what lens you are using or if you're using AF or manually focusing. At least one of the Parrot photos indicates that lens is very capable.

This may be a longer process than you counted on. It may take several hundred photos that you adjust from RAW to become comfortable with the process. It might be worth it to pick up one of the many third party books on PSE3 and use their method for basic RAW conversion and adjustment to start. There are different schools of thought but a patterned approach produces the most consistent results, and then you can deviate from that as needed.

What else can we do to help?