
SHARPENING HIGH ISO IMAGES WITH REDUCE NOISE
Reduce Noise is another filter in
Photoshop that effectively sharpens
images and removes noise from images
shot with a high ISO (Figure 8-52). Like
Smart Sharpen, it uses space-age inspired
math to do the job. And, like Smart
Sharpen, the intense math results in slow
performance. Photoshop’s Reduce Noise
filter can also be used non-destructively
on Smart Objects.
I go into great detail on using this filter
in Chapter 9, but as you can see in the
following before (Figure 8-53) and after
(Figure 8-54) images, it is quite effective in
sharpening as well as noise removal.
Although TIFF or PSD files converted
from RAW don’t usually contain JPEG
artifacts, there are times when selecting
this option helps. This is because some
RAW data is actually compressed using a
lossy, JPEG-like compression. With some
digital cameras, this is a user option, but
other times the compression is simply
performed without the user’s knowledge.
RAW images shot at a high ISO are problematic. Not only do
they often need sharpening, but they also contain a lot of noise
that is invariably boosted in the sharpening process.
Sharpening
High ISO Images
with Reduce Noise
Figure 8-53
Figure 8-54
Figure 8-52