Print noise away
by eNoBlog on Dec.12, 2009, under Post-processing, Techniques
As much as I tell myself to not worry too much about noise in my images, I still struggle with the topic. Lately, I’ve been gathering my “best work” with the goal of making fine prints for framing and maybe — if I get lucky — sell one or two.
Along the way, I’ve been taking a very critical look at the image inventory I have collected over the past two years. Needless to say, a self-critical assessment has revealed many imperfections, among them noise. In particular, even properly exposed outdoor images featuring blue skies are showing more noise than I’d like in those constant blue sections. In some cases, I’ve been applying selective noise reduction there with some mixed results — mixed enough that for some prints, I just left the noise in and, otherwise happy with the image, went ahead and made 11×14 prints.
A surprising thing happened when I got my prints back. Even though the noise is visible at 100% viewing size on my computer monitor, and though even downsized versions show noise in skies and other shadow areas, the prints were absolutely spotless. Yes, even while staring at the print from less than 12 inches away. What happened here?
If what one reads is to be believed, the printing process, with its blending/bleeding of ink tends to smooth out detail (the reason why sharpening with printing in mind is important), and this tends to have a positive effect on noise/grain. Step back a couple of feet to view an 11×14 print, and noise has become a complete non-issue. It appears most of my obsession with noise has been badly misplaced.
As a parting thought, if you’ve exclusively relegated your photos to Flickr and/or other online forums, and have not gone beyond your personal online gallery for displaying your images, I’d advise you print a couple of your best, give them a nice, simple matt, and put them behind glass in a frame. You might be surprised how good your images look. Maybe you can turn them into Christmas presents this year. Just make sure they don’t portray a thick tie.
December 12th, 2009 on 5:53 am
I own a three Cartier-Bresson photos that he printed for a book he was working on. In these first prints, it is interesting to note that he left process issues in. Not noise, of course but other things and it is even more interesting to see that the problems showed up in the book.
December 26th, 2009 on 6:47 pm
It is indeed true that in some cases, good inherent color noise will add to the richness of a print. Not that I’m not talking about a crappy noisy image, perhaps in which exposure has been way over-adjusted, which we know is just plain bad. But good noise will liken itself to film grain and will add overall richness and dimension.
As a new camera test, I usually take the ISO to the boundary on a blue sky day and make some test prints, usually from a lab, to see just how far I can take things, Even on my old seemingly problematic Pana DMC-LX2, printed results at IS0 400 looked very nice, while on the monitor they were less than satisfactory.
Take a blue sky file, like a decent scenic, leave the noise in one version, they sterilize the other version, getting out as much sky noise as you possibly can. When both are printed you’ll be surprised as to which version you perceive as being better.
BTW Happy Holidays