Noise!!!!!!!!

[flea]

Problem: I have an increased amount of noise on my pictures
Info:
I shoot in both raw and JPG(full size)
I do surf photography(maybe salt got in my camera)
I already troubleshooted with my ISO settings, doesnt seem to be that(i usually shoot 800 or 1600 but there wasnt as much noise as there is right now)
I already cleaned my lenses so it cant be that
What should i do?
i dont know, perhaps its a messed up sensor in which i have to get replaced or repaired! please HELP ME!!!

[another view]

A dirty sensor doesn't cause noise. Dust that you can't see by looking at the sensor can show up in images, but again this has nothing to do with noise. Noise is a lot more visible at higher ISO settings - for example my Fuji S2 is great at or below 400, not bad at 800 and pretty bad at 1600. There are noise reduction programs like Noise Ninja that can be used as Photoshop plug-ins and they do a great job. If you're shooting at 800 and 1600, you'll see noise - it's just that simple.

Can you post a sample just to clear up what's really going on?

[livin4lax09]

noise also shows up in dark areas. Smarter to overexpose or hit the exposure dead on with high ISOs. you'll see the most noise in your blacks.

[jar_e]

Noise can also come after digital manipulation/compression of a picture, so remember to view your original also.

My two cents of help

Jared

[livin4lax09]

are you sure? I've always just thought that was jpeg compression. I don't think it does actually. Digital noise is spots where the color is very radically different for a pixel, and it prohibits compression. Compression occurs when a jpeg can average color among many pixels, to make it a smaller size. Because of the extreme variation of color, it is much harder to average these pixels, so the computer doesn't do as much. This is also the reason that photos shot on ISO 3200 are about 3 times as big (MB wise) as photos shot on ISO 100-400. So if anything, compression would help to eliminate noise, because it would average the values, and the individual noise artifacts wouldn't show up as distinctly.

[another view]

Good point, Brent - but noise can show up more in dark areas after post processing if you globally lighten the shot. That makes the dark areas brighter, and the noise more obvious. Of course, there are ways to do this in layers or even simply burn in the dark areas but they can take a little more time.

[livin4lax09]

also, heard that noise shows up the most in the Blue layer. Is it true that you can go in and seperate the image into its three layers, blur the noisy spots on the blue layer, then combine them back together? just a rumor I heard.

[another view]

Yeah, it's true but Noise Ninja will work much better.