How to do NoiseReduction in LightroomA Post By: Helen Bradley

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When you capture images using a high ISO setting you willinvariably end up with some noise in your photos. If thenoise is distracting and if you want to remove it, thenLightroom can help.

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A word of warningBefore start using any noise removal tool it will pay tounderstand that noise removal is generally achieved at theexpense of losing some detail in the photo. This is becausethe noise removal process involves smoothing the imagepixels, and this in turn compromises fine detail. In addition,the main Lightroom noise removal tool applies the fix to theentire image not just the areas where it is most visible,meaning that you can’t mask the result and limit it to onlythose areas you want to apply it.

Because of this, if you are a purist and noise reduction is anongoing and significant need, then you may consider adedicated and specialist noise reduction program such asTopaz DeNoise, Neat Image or Photo Ninja a worthwhileinvestment. However, for most photographers, the tools inLightroom judiciously applied will suffice.

Identifying noiseNoise in photos comes in two types; color noise andluminance noise. Color noise is evidenced by multicoloredpixels in an area of the photo that should show as a flatcolor. In the image below you can see that there aremulticolor pixels in an area which should be solid blue.

Luminance noise is monochromic so it will be less colorful

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and more like grain. Here is luminance noise in the sky of aphoto captured at an ISO of 6400 in early morning light:

Process versionsWhenever you import an image into Lightroom some noiseremoval will be performed automatically by the processversion which is the camera raw technology Lightroom usesto adjust and render your photos. In each process versionthe technology has improved over that of the earlierversions. So each will render your photos differently and, inparticular, Process Version 2010 included better noisereduction technology than the earlier 2003 version. Thiswas carried forward to the 2012 version.

The current process version for Lightroom 4 and 5 users is2012 so, if you have images in your catalog that youimported using an earlier version of Lightroom (versions 1,2 or 3) which are still set to process version 2003 then youcan achieve some immediate benefits in noise reduction bysimply updating those images to the new process version.To do this select the images and in the Develop modulefrom the Camera Calibration panel select 2012 (Current) asthe process version (use the Sync option to copy the settingto all selected images).

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Removing noiseTo remove noise from a photo, open the Detail Panel in theDevelop module to display the noise reduction sliders.There you will find sliders for Luminance noise and forColor noise.

For raw imagesLightroomautomatically appliescolor noise reductionin the import process.So the Color NoiseReduction slider willbe set, by default, to25 with Detail andSmoothness set at 50for all raw images.The Luminance noiseslider will be set at 0,with Detail at 50 (seescreenshot on theright)

Adjust the slider forthe type of noise youare seeing in theimage, either color orluminance. If you are unsure what type of noise you have,adjust each slider in turn to the maximum value to see

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which removes the noise. In some cases you may have bothtypes of noise, in other cases one type may predominate.

Once you know what type of noise you are trying toremove, adjust the slider for that type of noise by draggingit to the right. Aim to reduce the noise to an acceptablelevel, but avoid going beyond that point because, in doingso, you will lose some detail in the image.

Once you have adjusted the Luminance Noise slider youcan then adjust its Detail and Contrast sliders. The Detailslider controls the luminance noise threshold – the higherthe value the more detail in the image but, as a result, youmay experience some residual noise. If you use a lowervalue you will get a smoother result but with less detail.

The Contrast slider controls luminance contrast so highvalues will retain more contrast but you may also see morenoise and mottling in the image. Lower values will give youa smoother result but again at the expense of reducingcontrast.

For Color Noise there are two additional sliders: Detail andSmoothness (the latter was added in Lightroom 5.2). TheDetail slider controls the color noise threshold, so adjustingthis to a higher value will protect detail in thin colorededges but often at the expense of removing speckled color.Lower values will give you some added smoothing of thecolor noise but, as a result, you may notice that colors bleed

into each other. Adjust the Smoothness slider to helpreduce low-frequency color mottling artifacts.

In this image, removing Color noise leaves some Luminancenoise apparent:

Once the color noise is removed, the Luminance slider willremove the remaining Luminance noise:

When you are removing noise from an image it helps to beviewing the image at a 1:1 size ratio so you see clearly whatis happening. Periodically zoom out to check the result.

Local Noise Reduction

If your image has luminance noise you can remove thisfrom selected areas of the image using any of the threelocal adjustment tools: the Adjustment Brush, the RadialFilter or the Graduated Filter. These tools let you limit noisereduction to only those areas you want to affect, leavingother areas of the image unchanged. The downside to thisfeature is that there is no additional Detail or Contrastslider to fine tune the result, and it only works to removeluminance noise (not color noise).

Using any of these tools select the area from which toremove noise, and then adjust the Noise adjustment slider.Drag to the right to remove luminance noise from theimage. If you drag to the left then you will add noise to theimage.

When you go to sharpen an image that you have removednoise from, pay attention to the Masking slider in the Detailpanel. Using this you can apply sharpening to only theedges in the image and avoid sharpening areas of flat colorwhere the noise was most apparent.

Here is a video tutorial showing how to reduce noise inphotos in Lightroom:

Summary

Remove Noise in Photos in Lightroom - identify and fix color a

If you have questions or comments please leave them inthe space below. Hope this helps you with removing someof the noise in your images.

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Helen Bradley is a Lifestyle journalistwho divides her time between the realand digital worlds, picking the best from

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Dennis Ederer • a year agoExcellent article on a subject that I still struggle with. I'll print

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• Reply •

Excellent article on a subject that I still struggle with. I'll printthe article and insert into my binder of favorite workflowarticles for challenging image edits. I look forward to theweekly newsletter. Thank you for sharing your wealth ofknowledge.

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• Reply •

Raghavendra Kopalle • a year agoOne last step after all the sliders on LR would be to downsample the image which reduces noise further. Anyway notmany of us would be using a 18-20 MP image, so reduce itto 12-14 MP as a final step.

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• Reply •

Helen Bradley • a year ago

> Raghavendra Kopalle

You make an interesting point Raghavendra...

Downsampling can't be recommended as a tool fornoise reduction. However, if you do choose toreduce the size of your image (for other reasons),then you will probably (as a side benefit) see somefurther reduction in noise.

And how do you downsample? Simply export thephoto using the Export option and specify an imagesize smaller than that of the original.

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• Reply •

Raghavendra Kopalle • a year ago

> Helen Bradley

Hello Helen, Yes it is not a tool per se but Itried this after reading it on manyphotography sites. I do this especially onhigh ISO underexposed shots after applyingmost of the steps you recommended in LRand yes by simply exporting in LR with lowermegapixels. △ ▽

Benn Brown • a year ago

> RaghavendraKopalle

this will work but its purelypsychological:) the noise is still there,you just cant enlarge as much as thefull size so the image "appears" to

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• Reply •

full size so the image "appears" tohave less noise:) △ ▽

• Reply •

Pierre Pichot • a year agoNice article! How is Lightroom's noise reduction engine infront of dedicated plugins like Topaz's or Nik's?

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Helen Bradley • a year ago> Pierre Pichot

+Pierre Pichot - the proprietary plugins will typicallyoffer more options in noise reduction - in particularthe ability to mask the noise reduction effect so youapply it only where you really need it to be.

However, if you want a pretty good tool withouthaving to pay a chunk of extra change for it, thenLightroom is great. △ ▽

• Reply •

Pierre Pichot • a year ago

> Helen Bradley

Thanks for the answer. Masking the noisereduction seems very appealing to me. I'mgoing to try some demos.Lightroom is my main workflow tool, I thinkit's the best piece of photography gear I'veever bought :)

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Chris Tucker • a year agoI like the app, Define2 for noise reduction in LR or PS

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rebecca haegele • a year agoThank you for your clear explanation!

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Sois Ph • a year agothanks so much !

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Helen Bradley • a year ago> Sois Ph

Thanks +Sois Ph

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• Reply •Thanks +Sois Ph

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Sebastián Méndez • 3 months agosuch sloooooooow video. △ ▽

Theo Lubbe • a year agoFor LR-based noise reduction I find I personally preferusing, for Luminance and Colour respectively:

25/50/0 (I will sometimes push this to 40/50/0, but it'lldepend entirely on how the image's appearance is affected- 25 I find virtually never impacts an image so negativelythat I want to use a lower setting)100/50/50

There's still going to be some noise left, but to me it lookscloser to grain on film without any excessive smoothing ofareas nor introduction of noise-reduction 'jaggies' anywherewhich have to be dealt with manually (unless you push thethresholds further, blurring everything into an ugly soup).Overall image detail is retained and the noise which may besharpened if applying an unsharp mask in PS later isn't asbad.

Of course, if you've access to PS anyway you could alsouse two versions of your image; a more heavy-handedversion and one which has a more restrained noisereduction applied, then using layers you mask in the NRwhere you want it and don't where you don't. I thinkemploying luminosity masks to denoise shadows (wheredetail will be lessened anyway) a bit so they don't appearquite as muddy may work well, though it's only somethingI'm thinking of and not something I've actually tried myselfyet.

*edit* And now that I look at it, for the first time I noticed anarea in a photo of mine where colour noise reductioncaused a loss of colour in an area of the image when simplypushing to 100 without adjusting the detail/smoothness. I'dpreviously pushed these sliders about while trying to findtheir effect somewhere but never did.

Damaging NR exampleLess damaging NR example

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Less damaging NR example

Just when I thought I had a handle on how to do NR to myliking... △ ▽

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Gonçalo • a year agoGreat article indeed, but I have a doubt... Taking intoaccount that sharpening can possibly increase noise,should one leave out the sharpening step (with images thathave a big amount of noise) thus lowering the amount ofnoise reduction used. Or should sharpening be usednevertheless, and then use noise reduction, even if with ahigher amount?Thanks △ ▽

• Reply •

Zullu • a year agohow about banding ... that ugly jagged transition from greyto a light grey for example ... how do you remove bandingwithout adding noise to the "gradient" △ ▽

• Reply •

Josie Longo • a year agoI learned to use a combined total of 100 between the Noiseand Sharpening tools. If you adjust Noise by 30 then adjustSharpen by 70 for a total of 100. Then the Masking tool cangive more precise sharpening by holding down theAlt/Option key while adjusting the slider. That last stepmakes a huge difference in the process. △ ▽

• Reply •

Bobby Stewart • a year ago> Josie Longo

The first person I heard using that formula wasSerge Ramelli.And I find it works pretty well in general.

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