Modern cameras do a pretty amazing job of minimizing noise in high ISO images. But they also let you go up to some pretty crazy high ISO settings! If you’re trying to eliminate the noise from any photo, there are multiple approaches. Indeed, let’s see how to eliminate noise in high ISO images in Silver Efex Pro.

There is also a video version of this tip, which will cover some of the same info. There will be a lot of other tidbits but it may not include everything listed in this article. In other-words… enjoy both!

Two Base Approaches to Noisy Photos

There are really just two primary approaches to eliminate noise in high ISO images. You can try to eliminate the noise, or try to disguise the noise. And the best idea may be to do a combination of the two.

Elimination means noise reduction, which works well at low settings. But if you crank it up too high, the image becomes plastic and artificial looking.

Disguising it means adding grain, which has a completely different pattern than noise and looks more natural than noise. Even though the image may not be “cleaner”, it will look better and more pleasing to the eye.

Other tips include mixing the two (reducing noise a little bit, then disguising what’s left with grain). Or embracing the grain by converting to black and white and adding a lot of grain to it (which is generally more acceptable in B&W than in color). And even scaling an image down to shrink the noise. (post continued on DxO's Blog; link below…)

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To read the rest of this article, please visit the DxO Blog!