Lightroom noise levels

[mrirvs]

Michael,

Seeing as the Rawshooter guys are involved in the development of Lightroom, will they be including the excellent noise handling that RSP exhibits and also, but not so important, the ISO related noise level presets.

I am really enjoying using Beta 4.1 of Lightroom and I have a lot of ISO 400+ sports images that have some noise in shadow areas, probably due in part to underexposure. RSP gives me almost noise free develops of these images whereas Lightroom doesn't.

Any information or thoughts would be interesting.

[MichaelT]

First, only Michael Jonnson from RAW shooter is working as a developer for Adobe. He is not working specifically on LR, but on general low level raw processing for the ACR engine used in ALL Adobe products that process raw images.

I believe that LR uses the Noise reduction that has been used previously in ACR. Whether that has been tweaked by Michael or others at Adobe I have no idea. But take a look. There is a color and luminance slider for adjusting Noise reduction.

No presets by ISO "yet".

[mrirvs]

There is a color and luminance slider for adjusting Noise reduction..

Sorry, I don't understand that - the only noise reduction tools I can see are under the 'detail' panel and are labelled 'noise' and 'smoothness'.

These are quite effective for the 30D if set quite high, but just doesn't look as good at 100% compared to an the same image processed in RSP.

However, from the LR results seen so far the colours produced are streets ahead of those from RSP, which is very encouraging :-)

As a side note I thought I'd be cheeky and attempt to order LR on-line and enter my RSP key into the 'promo code' box. Unfortunately, it didn't work but it would make sense for Adobe to use a method like this to get us RSP owners their much deserved copy of LR :-))

Thanks

Paul

[MichaelT]

In the V1.0 version of LR the Noise Reduction controls are labeled Luminance and Color. I do not know if just the names have changed (I suspect this) or whether the underlying algorithms have changed (unlikely since the beta4).

While I do not have the details of the free LR for RSP owners, it will be something like that involving using you serial number. At least that was the last I heard. Probably similar to how CS2 PS owners got temp serial #s for PS CS3, except that the LR serial #s will be permanent as if it had been purchased. Details should be out on the 19th I believe...

[leebase]

Glad you started this thread -- I came here to talk about this topic as well. I've been shooting some indoor basketball -- wide apertures, high ISO -- and I was surprised at how noisy my photos were.

What happened to my beloved 5D and 20D? I'd been used to shooting high ISO's with little fear. Not so with LightRoom (beta 4.1). A quick trip through Noise Ninja in batch mode and all is better again -- but I had stopped using NN when RawShooter came out.

It's not a deal breaker for me, after all, I do already own NN. But it is a disappointment. I also do not think the sharpness is as good in LR as it was in RawShooter. I'll probably consider running FocalBlade again -- something I stopped doing when I used RawShooter.

Can't wait for v1 to come out -- I'm more excited by it's release than I can remember for anything else.

Lee

[MichaelT]

It IS an exciting program. But it IS a V1.0 release and like all V1.0 releases before it of any program, it is not complete by any means. It is the nature of software. But it is off to a great start...

[leebase]

It IS an exciting program. But it IS a V1.0 release and like all V1.0 releases before it of any program, it is not complete by any means. It is the nature of software. But it is off to a great start...

Is the guy responsible for the great noise reduction and sharpness of RawShooter working for Adobe now?

I was glad they brought over the vibrance (and improved it) from RSP.

Lee

[MichaelT]

Yes, Michael Jonsson is now working on raw processing for Adobe.