If you know about Tim Grey you probably have subscribed to his eNewsletter where he answers daily questions from readers about photography and Adobe software. He has been doing this for 15 years. Tim is one of our featured speakers at CAPS-Chicago Area Photographic School on November 21st and 22nd. On Saturday he will be talking about workflow in Lightroom. This will be the full morning session on Saturday with a repeat in the afternoon. For a full morning session on Sunday he will be talking about optimizing images in Lightroom and Photoshop. On Sunday afternoon he will be talking about advanced adjustments in Photoshop. Below is one of the sample questions that he gets.
Today's Question: |
How do adjustments in Lightroom
(for blacks, whites, shadows, clarity, vibrance, etc.) affect noise? Should
noise be dealt with first or last, after all other
adjustments?
|
Tim's Quick Answer:
|
In general concept, you can make changes to
the various adjustments within Lightroom in any order at all, since the order
you apply adjustments doesn't impact the actual effect of those adjustments.
That said, it is important to evaluate the impact of one adjustment on another.
For example, if you brighten up shadow detail you may need to increase the
strength of noise reduction.
|
More Detail:
|
| Lightroom employs a
non-destructive workflow for your photos, meaning that when you are working in
the Develop module you aren't actually changing pixel values in your original
capture, but rather creating a set of adjustment metadata that is used to adjust
the appearance of your photo within Lightroom, and as the basis of the
processing for the photo when you export a copy of a photo.
Among other things, this means you don't need to apply your adjustments in
any particular order to achieve a given result for a photo. In theory, for
example, you would want to apply noise reduction before sharpening, so that the
sharpening doesn't enhance the underlying noise. In the case of Lightroom (and
also with Adobe Camera Raw), it doesn't matter whether you adjust the settings
for noise reduction or sharpening first. All that matters is the final settings
established for these controls.
To be sure, if the noise reduction adjustment doesn't eliminate the noise
altogether, other adjustments may make the noise more visible or more
problematic. For example, sharpening can serve to emphasize noise in an image,
and brightening shadows can make noise more visible in the photo.
Any adjustment that enhances color or contrast, or that brightens up detail
in the photo, has the potential to make noise more visible in the photo. But if
the noise reduction settings you've applied cause the noise to be mitigated
adequately, the effect of those other adjustments on any noise that remains will
generally be relatively
minor.
Tim Grey is a photographer who has written more than
a dozen books for photographers, has published dozens of video training
courses, and has had hundreds of articles published in magazines such as Digital Photo Pro and Outdoor Photographer, among others. He
also publishes the Ask Tim Grey eNewsletter, the monthly Pixology digital
magazine, and a wide variety of video training courses through his GreyLearning
website. Tim teaches through workshops, seminars, and appearances at major
events around the world.
Website: Tim Grey - Photographer, Author, Educator, Digital Imaging Expert
To go to the CAPS website go to:
|
No comments:
Post a Comment