Real World Compositing with Adobe Photoshop CS4

Digital Noise

For experienced photographers, digital noise is a fact of life. Depending on what type of camera you use and the types of images you are shooting, the process of managing noise in your composite images can range from something that takes a few minutes to something that requires several minutes per image. As with light quality, depth of field, and other photographic characteristics, there are ways of digitally working with noise in Photoshop (these are discussed with more detail in Chapter 7, “Processing Raw Source Files,” and Chapter 8, “Enhancing Source Images”).

When in doubt, avoid it. Despite all the techniques available to eliminate noise, the best solution is to avoid noise altogether. The less noise you start with in your ...