What to do about the noise? In editing photos from an exhibit at the New York Botanical Garden, I came across the attached photo. What you see in the download is a crop and edit that...

UTMike Loc: South Jordan, UT

In editing photos from an exhibit at the New York Botanical Garden, I came across the attached photo. What you see in the download is a crop and edit that resulted in noise that I did not know how to address. Perhaps it cannot be addressed and I should consider this shot an "art" picture. I use LightRoom and Photo Shop, but I have little familiarity with PS.

(Download)

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

Was it originally shot in RAW? Was it first imported into LR?
If yes to both then you can go back to the Out Of Camera RAW in the LR develop mode and re-do it, with noise reduction.
How much of a crop is it and how big will you be printing?

MikWar Loc: Chicago, Western Suburbs

Did you try the Noise Reduction sliders in the Detail panel of the Develop module in Lightroom? Try the Luminance and Color sliders separately.

R.G. Loc: Scotland

Lifting the shadows a lot will result in noise. Settling for a more contrasty shot by easing off with the Shadows slider will help. And if you use the Masking slider in the Sharpen section to give it edge-based sharpening, you'll be able to give it generous amounts of denoise without causing excessive softness. When you add Luminance denioise, keep the Denoise Details slider up quite high (85-90). And use generous amounts of Color denoise (again with the Details slider quite high).

UTMike Loc: South Jordan, UT

robertjerl wrote:

Was it originally shot in RAW? Was it first imported into LR?
If yes to both then you can go back to the Out Of Camera RAW in the LR develop mode and re-do it, with noise reduction.
How much of a crop is it and how big will you be printing?

Good suggestion. I will give that a try. Thanks, Bob.

UTMike Loc: South Jordan, UT

MikWar wrote:

Did you try the Noise Reduction sliders in the Detail panel of the Develop module in Lightroom? Try the Luminance and Color sliders separately.

Another good point. I may get this right.

UTMike Loc: South Jordan, UT

R.G. wrote:

Lifting the shadows a lot will result in noise. Settling for a more contrasty shot by easing off with the Shadows slider will help. And if you use the Masking slider in the Sharpen section to give it edge-based sharpening, you'll be able to give it generous amounts of denoise without causing excessive softness. When you add Luminance denioise, keep the Denoise Details slider up quite high (85-90). And use generous amounts of Color denoise (again with the Details slider quite high).

Thanks, R.G., with this much guidance, I may get there.

UTMike Loc: South Jordan, UT

Here is the redo

(Download)

R.G. Loc: Scotland

Much improved. You might get away with an overall lightening now that the worst of the noise has been tamed. If the background persists in being a problem you could select it and give it extra denoise (and possibly darkening) since there's no small detail or texture to be lost. You might also find that you can slightly increase the brightness of yellow and orange in the HSL section - but watch out for it causing patchiness. Too big an adjustment can do that.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

Big improvement - now you can use the clone tool to take out all the light reflection hot spots, Do one at a time take your time and if one doesn't look right undo it and try again. Eventually you will get them all.

johneccles Loc: Leyland UK

There a couple of things to try, use a lower ISO next time although ISO 500 shouldn't be too high the noise is not really acceptable.

(Manual exposure, 1/100 sec, f/5.6, ISO 500)

You could also try using the denoise in your post-processing software.

BobHartung Loc: Bettendorf, IA

UTMike wrote:

In editing photos from an exhibit at the New York Botanical Garden, I came across the attached photo. What you see in the download is a crop and edit that resulted in noise that I did not know how to address. Perhaps it cannot be addressed and I should consider this shot an "art" picture. I use LightRoom and Photo Shop, but I have little familiarity with PS.

Imagenomics Noiseware will help when you hit the wall with the LR adjustments. John Paul Caponigro swears by it.

UTMike Loc: South Jordan, UT

Thanks everyone! This has been a great tutorial for me and gives me something to work on when it gets too hot.

KTJohnson Loc: Northern Michigan

That's an amazing improvement. Well done! And thanks R.G. and others for advice.

Silverman Loc: Michigan

UTMike wrote:

In editing photos from an exhibit at the New York Botanical Garden, I came across the attached photo. What you see in the download is a crop and edit that resulted in noise that I did not know how to address. Perhaps it cannot be addressed and I should consider this shot an "art" picture. I use LightRoom and Photo Shop, but I have little familiarity with PS.

Wow, the download image really shows the Noise! Possibly ISO was set too high?
Maybe a Manual setting with a low ISO and possibly if required a "Off-Camera" bounced Speedlight Flash would have improved the photo.
Possibly Try the "I Am Shooting" method of setting your exposure, in the following order, #1-ISO, #2-Aperture #3-Shutter Speed.
Hopefully, Other more Professional experts will have offer you further advice.