Mexico
was special…pretty, but special
Turning 21 in a week!!!
Trying out a new post-processing technique for some performance shots.
While I love DSLRs for their ease of use and convenience (I mean, if I had to develop and scan 10 rolls of film every time I shot a show, I’d cry) one thing that annoys the shit out of me is NOISE.
Noise on a digi-cam is the equivalent of Grain on film…though unlike film, noise on dslrs happens to come in lovely patterns…mostly bands (horiz or vert) of red and other colors that are hideous…grain is random.
Don’t think for a SECOND that I don’t like grain or noise…because I LOVE IT…I just don’t like the bands that form on DSLRS when I’m at 3200 or even 1600 in some cases (if it’s a smidge underexposed and I have to push it a bit)
My standard noise reduction is pretty simple. In camera noise reduction on 40D (removes just chroma noise, leaving luminance alone which leaves detail…this is why I’ll never switch back to Nikon) and reduce color noise (whatever the 40D doesn’t catch) in ACR 100%. That’s about it.
Still had some banding issues, but I’d either burn those parts in or just toss the image if it is too bad.
I’m finding that noise is most noticeable where it’s location happens to be on a large area that’s relatively the same color…so it stands out more because there is no objects to distract from the pattern of lines. These places are 9 times out of 10 an out of focus region…so I figured…why not blur it? It’s already out of focus, so who cares if I add blur? Blur will make the area less sharp and thus, blend the noise with the surrounding area…it seems to be working well so far, though I am afraid that the blurring may be too obvious when looking at the image on a monitor that’s not calibrated…so they might be able to tell that the OOF areas are extra blurred and there is too much separation from the background and the performer may look like a cutout…
ugh
death
-Eric