John Mitchell Posted July 17, 2014 Share Posted July 17, 2014 One thing I've learned the hard way on Alamy is that I'm really bad at spotting different types of noise in images. I would appreciate some help with this one from you experts. How bad is the noise in this 100% crop of blue water taken at ISO 200 with a telephoto lens on a very bright day? The sun was at a fairly low angle, so there appear to be shadow areas between the small waves. The image already has some NR applied. Adding more doesn't seem to make any difference to the overall appearance. Many thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ann Posted July 17, 2014 Share Posted July 17, 2014 Putting the 'expert' part aside - based on how 100% crop appears on my monitor, the lightest areas indicate the noise was too much for NR to handle successfully - faint, tiny vertical lines of noise + softness. Unless there's some notable redeeming factor in overall image, such as prominent person swimming nearby, I'd skip submitting it. Hope this helps, John. - Ann Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted July 17, 2014 Author Share Posted July 17, 2014 Putting the 'expert' part aside - based on how 100% crop appears on my monitor, the lightest areas indicate the noise was too much for NR to handle successfully - faint, tiny vertical lines of noise + softness. Unless there's some notable redeeming factor in overall image, such as prominent person swimming nearby, I'd skip submitting it. Hope this helps, John. - Ann Thanks, Ann. Wish I could see those tiny vertical lines of noise that you mention. Perhaps I need a better monitor, or stronger glasses. This sort of stuff drives me nuts. BTW this crop is from the image foreground, which is not in focus, hence the softness. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jill Morgan Posted July 17, 2014 Share Posted July 17, 2014 I don't see tnem either. Be nice to see the whole shot. Jill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ann Posted July 18, 2014 Share Posted July 18, 2014 CalIng them vertical 'lines' probably gives wrong impression. It's a thin scattering of tiny vertical slashes only as tall as the space between one little horizontal wave to another. [ edited to add, now that I see entire photo - lovely vista, John! ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted July 18, 2014 Author Share Posted July 18, 2014 Thanks for the feedback. My understanding is that Alamy is only interested in excessive chroma (colour) noise. Is there any of that in the crop? The texture of the water seems a bit weird to me, but I'm not sure if it's noise or just the way the choppy surface looks. As mentioned, I'm not much good at identifying possible noise problems. Perhaps I just need to correct the colour somehow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted July 18, 2014 Author Share Posted July 18, 2014 Here's a link to the entire image, but I think that the 100% crop from the foreground is much more useful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted July 18, 2014 Share Posted July 18, 2014 Nice shot! Again, no expert, but I see noise as being mainly a problem in areas of plain colour. Detail tends to mask it, except where it is very bad and produces lumps that obscure the detail. I would be looking for noise in the sky within this image, I can't see anything wrong with the water. I assume that you have used your NEX 6 here? I find that the NEX 6 produces pretty clean images most of the time, but, in high contrast situations, attempting to lift the shadows can sometimes introduce noise that can't be dealt with. Suggest that you invest in a copy of Lightroom, where the noise controls (and most other stuff) are a tad more sophisticated than those in the Sony packaged software. Steep learning curve and not, in my opinion, very intuitive, but very useful software. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted July 18, 2014 Author Share Posted July 18, 2014 Thanks, Bryan. I was indeed using the NEX-6, and I've had no noise issues with it. Think I'm being overly paranoid here. The choppy water just has an unusual texture. No noise in the sky or shadow areas that I can see, just lingering summer haze. One of these days I'll graduate to LR. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Jordan Posted July 18, 2014 Share Posted July 18, 2014 John, I cannot see any noise problem with your picture. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Russell Watkins Posted July 18, 2014 Share Posted July 18, 2014 Me neither. I think it looks "unusually textured" because you have a combination of defocus due to the limits of the depth of field and degradation due to optical aberrations at the periphery of the lens overlaid on wavy reflective water. Part of me wonders how it would look if you'd used a polarizing/polarising filter. I'd be happily submitting this (with a small crop) if everything else was satisfactory at 100%. It's a nice shot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Russell Watkins Posted July 18, 2014 Share Posted July 18, 2014 And another thought... John, can you post a 100% crop of the same area but without any NR applied? I think the already applied NR is also contributing to the "unusual texture". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M.Chapman Posted July 18, 2014 Share Posted July 18, 2014 I don't see any problem with noise in the 100% crop of the water you posted. Other areas in the image might be worth checking for noise are the slopes of the mountains in the distance and the sky. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Mayall Posted July 18, 2014 Share Posted July 18, 2014 John, I see some noise but not enough to have stopped me uploading it to Alamy, if this image failed QC, it would be a shame really as in normal print to a full page the quality should be fine. So much material is not being seen because of pixel peeping QC decision makers, not only here at Alamy but many other places. I can confidently say that 99% of my failures had minimal problems, definitely not noticeable in normal print or screen, the question is why are they so borderline with QC, i often think back to the early days of transparencies and try to imagine how many failures would have taken place if the tranny's could have been viewed with a 100% eye loupe. A terrible thought that many of the great images we have seen from earlier years may not have materealised. Just my thoughts! Paul. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jill Morgan Posted July 18, 2014 Share Posted July 18, 2014 I agree that if the mountains don't have any noise, your good to go. They would be the easiest culprits. Jill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Rooney Posted July 18, 2014 Share Posted July 18, 2014 Here's a link to the entire image, but I think that the 100% crop from the foreground is much more useful. Not in this instance. I see nothing wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Betty LaRue Posted July 18, 2014 Share Posted July 18, 2014 I'd submit it. Good image, John. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted July 18, 2014 Author Share Posted July 18, 2014 And another thought... John, can you post a 100% crop of the same area but without any NR applied? I think the already applied NR is also contributing to the "unusual texture". Sorry, Russell, I can't do that because this was shot in JPEG mode and any NR (low) would have been applied in-camera. The Sony NEX-6, which I was used for capturing this image, generally cleans up noise very well. In hindsight, I should have changed to RAW+JPEG but didn't have time in this instance. Thanks very much for your comments. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted July 18, 2014 Author Share Posted July 18, 2014 John, I see some noise but not enough to have stopped me uploading it to Alamy, if this image failed QC, it would be a shame really as in normal print to a full page the quality should be fine. So much material is not being seen because of pixel peeping QC decision makers, not only here at Alamy but many other places. I can confidently say that 99% of my failures had minimal problems, definitely not noticeable in normal print or screen, the question is why are they so borderline with QC, i often think back to the early days of transparencies and try to imagine how many failures would have taken place if the tranny's could have been viewed with a 100% eye loupe. A terrible thought that many of the great images we have seen from earlier years may not have materealised. Just my thoughts! Paul. Interesting thoughts, Paul. I remember when I first started scanning slides and eyeballing the results at 100%. It was a bit of a shock. Nevertheless, many of my "imperfect" images had reproduced really well in magazines, newspapers, and books in pre-digital days. The times certainly have changed. We all now have to be obsessive pixel-peekers whether we like it or not (I don't particularly). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted July 18, 2014 Author Share Posted July 18, 2014 Here's a link to the entire image, but I think that the 100% crop from the foreground is much more useful. Not in this instance. I see nothing wrong. Thanks for the clean bill of health, Ed (and everyone else). Don't worry, I won't quote you if something unexpected happens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Jordan Posted July 19, 2014 Share Posted July 19, 2014 Yes, but do let us know the outcome.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Rooney Posted July 19, 2014 Share Posted July 19, 2014 Things seems to have gone awfully quiet in this noise post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Mayall Posted July 19, 2014 Share Posted July 19, 2014 Yes Ed, not much noise being made on this post, but then again how much noise can we handle? Paul. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted July 19, 2014 Author Share Posted July 19, 2014 Shhh.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Mayall Posted July 19, 2014 Share Posted July 19, 2014 Shhh.... Nice one John! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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