@JoPoV
I appreciate your suggestions regarding technique and your observation that these photo snippets appear soft. The intent was to present zoomed in snippets to better compare the NR capabilities of these two programs.
The snippets are 1500x1000px crops from a 8640x5760 photo (Sony a1 with the 200-600 âGâ zoom lens). So the snippets appear as a nominal 200% or larger zoom when viewing. This makes them âsoftâ. They are also perhaps âsoftâ from the 'less-than-ideal" shooting conditions as you point out.
So why did I choose these photo?
Any of the current or past NR algorithms can improve a well captured shot. These quality photos have a great âsignal to noiseâ ratio to feed the algorithm. The challenge for NR programs is preserving the details (sharpness) while suppressing the noise when the starting photo has a less than ideal âsignal to noiseâ ratio. The question becomes how much can be recovered from these photos, and what types of challenges is the algorithm best at recovering. Nature photographers often face these challenges, thatâs why Steve Perry is even talking about high iso photos. So I choose a variety of intentionally âchallengingâ photos to highlight, as best possible, what these two programs can do.
While a âsoftâ photo may not be marketable, the softness also presents a bonus challenge for the NR algorithm so as to minimize additional loss of sharpness.
Steve Perryâs video was focused on Adobeâs noise reduction techniques. The original poster, @wildlifephoto, appeared to be asking how this compared to PLâs method. There are lots of example out on the web. I choose some recent nature photos to show a comparison for less-than-ideal shooting conditions that a nature photographer might encounter despite rigorous preparation.
The photos were shot using a Sony a1 with the Sony 200-600mm âGâ zoom lens, so nominally a 50mp raw photo. Iso ranged from 4K to 12.8K. All photos were âsharpâ given the available shooting conditions. All photos were shot hand-held from within a 6-person Land Cruiser safari vehicle typical in the Serengeti. The softness here comes both the shooting technique as well as the pixel peeping nature of the displayed crops.
Also, I purposely did not state my conclusions in the first post to allow the reader to decide what was important to them, expecting they actually review the full-size photos.
I agree with your criticisms as to photography techniques (to the extent that any nature photographer can control the shooting environment). Yes, Steve Perry, and others share videos talking about these techniques. I watch some as I often see something that help me learn or refresh a technique. I also know nature photographers that only shoot at private ranches with blinds specifically arranged for ânatureâ photography to get âperfectâ conitions for commercial/competition reasons. My personal challenge is to get as good a shot as possible when hiking or travelling for our personal collection. I still aim for âthe perfect shotâ and keep coming back to try again. I meet others with similar goals.
Why did I choose these photos?
The lion and chameleon photos filled the frame and were properly sharp as described by Steve Perryâs 200% zoom test. The chameleon was also shot at 12,800 iso per Steve Perryâs claim. The Topi and bird photos were shot from a distance and, obviously, heavily cropped to show the subject. Low contrast around the Topiâs face against a bright background makes this one challenging. While these cropped photos are more for âdocumentingâ the observation I still want to make the best of them for our personal collection and chose them to represent poorer lighting conditions as well as the cropping impacts. Please review the actual photos with that in mind before passing judgement. There are several iterations of the LR options in the link. The DOPâs and XMPs are included too. I welcome additional suggestions on how to get the most of any of these photos.
I purposely choose to show the results of these âtestsâ without providing conclusions so others could draw their own conclusions. Perhaps I should have stated that explicitly.
When Adobeâs new noise reduction algorithm came out I spent a lot of time trying to get it to work, including pre-sharpening. I hoped to discard PL and stay with a single program workflow. I have used the 3rd party options too.
My conclusions from these examples are consistent with my previous comparison attempts, both with âqualityâ photos as well as these more challenging photos:
- A properly exposed photo (sharp focus, proper lighting, and subjects filling the frame) provides a better starting point as this provides a better âsignal/noiseâ ratio for the NR algorithm to use. You, Steve Perry, and I agree. No duh⌠However, the challenge is to get the most out of limited âdataâ.
- Steve Perryâs suggestion to do some sharpening before running the noise reduction is valid as it makes it easier for the LR user to observe the preferred NR amount in the loupe. Not news.
- Both programs provide sliders to tweak this balance of sharpening/NR to the userâs objective. NR does not fix a poorly focused or overcropped photo.
- Both programs provide a similar result, but PLâs method is much easier for me to incorporate into my workflow than a strict Adobe routine.
- PL usually provides superior results for less-than-ideal photos despite significant effort tweaking LRâs sliders in my periodic testing. Any program works for better photos.
- PL took less than 1 minute to export these 5 50mp photos to DNG. Adobe took twice as long. (On my PC, so others will have different results.)
- Adobeâs tools allow more tweaking before the export, saving time. PLs loupe is too small for me to use effectively without some trial-error exports. So overall time depends on use.
- The userâs screen quality, resolution, and size all impact the userâs perception of sharpness and noise. No duh! Steve Perry recommends reviewing at 200% for his use case with a 5K monitor. I toggle between 100% and 400% on both my screens just like when fine-tuning other parameters.
- I tried sharpening before DP export in PL but didnât see any advantage over sharpening the DNG along with the other adjustments. That is still a personal work-in-process. As a result, require an intermediate (de-mosaiced) DNG file be used in the workflow. Adobeâs stack does not add value for my workflow.
Additional thoughtâŚ
When the majority of noise is in the background and subject is âsharpâ I find a 2-layer technique is more effective than NR algorithms as Iâm generally softening the background anyway. Unfortunately, PLâs subject selection tools are not as effective as Adobeâs when doing this technique.