01-05-2008, 01:48 PM

Hi all,

tonight i was shooting in raw at iso 200 ( cant go no lower) with in built noise adjuster on,

i got it home looked ok in raw, saved it down to a jpeg but yet wont upload so had to file save as jpeg and the noise was bad manily in hte sky

what am i doing wrong ive done this 100 of times but it just wont work!


sorry i no the picture is big but u neeeed it to see the noise

01-05-2008, 05:25 PM

What camera arer you using?

01-05-2008, 07:10 PM

a d4o hmmm my pictures gone ill find another 1 grainy, i never shoot higher than 400 iso

this is iso 400



is it the way im converting them down? ive started tonight to save as tiffs but in jpeg format is that the right way?

01-05-2008, 11:11 PM

I never use in camera adjustments. If you're shooting RAW, there is no need to use a sharpening tool in camera. You can do it during image conversion, can't you?
I don't ever save a JPEG unless it's necessary. I save as a TIFF to maximize quality.

Just thinking now... Your OP was confusing. Are you saving it as a JPEG and when you open it, it looks noisy in the sky area? You sure it's not posterization from the conversion to a lossy JPEG??

01-05-2008, 11:19 PM

Are there two suns these days? I see two distinct shadows on that wall.
It's a good photo but you need to watch/ fix that lighting setup so you're not confusing the eye by having multiple shadow areas.

01-06-2008, 10:39 AM

Bry; im shooting in raw and saving to jpeg, as most websites wont take tif size files.

also that was my first night of shooting with flashes

01-06-2008, 12:13 PM

Originally Posted by fozthedevil

Bry; im shooting in raw and saving to jpeg, as most websites wont take tif size files.

also that was my first night of shooting with flashes

Just giving a friendly word of wisdom.
So, is it after you save the file as a JPEG you see the "noise?" If that's the case, the quality is too low and what you're really seeing is posterization. A JPEG throws away similar colors to shrink the file down to a nice size. It turns the nice sky gradation into a awful mess.
Try going back and saving a higher quality JPEG and see if that fixes the problem. If the site you use only allows a small file size and that's why you're taking down the quality, my only suggestion would be to find a new site to upload your photos.
File conversion from a RAW will not add noise. Editing a non-RAW file will.
I am not sure how to diagnose your workflow to tell you how to fix your situation.

01-06-2008, 07:30 PM

Plus if you're using something like PS, it may auto adjust and bumping up the exposure on an under exposed image creates noise.

Just a thought.

01-08-2008, 07:26 AM

Originally Posted by Village Idiot

Plus if you're using something like PS, it may auto adjust and bumping up the exposure on an under exposed image creates noise.

Just a thought.

I'd also advise against using auto adjustments in general. They tend to destroy tonal details in some parts. Check the histogram after you do an auto adjustment to see.

Fozthedevil, do you mean a Nikon D40? Hmm, didn't know it only went down to ISO 200. That's odd.

Just a general observation - dark images tend to show noise more noticeably.
Also, different DSLR's handle noise differently. From my understanding, Canon cameras (until recently) have been superior to Nikon when it comes to performance at higher ISO speeds.

I'm finding that out now with my D40x. I try to avoid shooting at high ISO's whenever possible.

Photoshop has some pretty good ways of dealing with noise when editing raw photos. Be careful when editing colours though - say you want to edit the saturation or luminosity of some tones - it may grab some, but due to the noise, will leave others, resulting in greater contrast in the noise. I found this out pretty early when converting to black and white through raw - I kept getting strange tones and noise effects. Best thing to do, is keep adjustments to a minimum - you can't beat a quality shot to begin with.

Another thing to experiment with, is HDR images. Photoshop can do this for you (through File>Automate if I remember correctly) but since it's still a new technique, the results aren't always great. Still, it could help with some of the tones. Haven't tried it yet with high ISO so it may not help, but it could help with the image to have a better tonal range, instead of so many dark tones.

Hope that helps.

01-08-2008, 09:46 AM

Originally Posted by fozthedevil

Bry; im shooting in raw and saving to jpeg, as most websites wont take tif size files.

also that was my first night of shooting with flashes

I've read up and had this discussion on flashes and cars twice in the past week. Are you shooting off camera?

The car is basically a mirror. Shooting a bare flash, or even a flash diffused by the umbrella will give you pretty poor results. To use a flash to correctly light a car, you need to bounce it off of something that will reflect on the car's surface, usually something big and white.

If you shoot a bare flash, the light just reflects off the surface and you'll be lucky to catch maybe a bit of polarized light if you have your flashes angled correctly. Shooting with a softbox that's not big enough to cover the entired intended are of the car will leave white boxes on the car where it reflects from.

You can get some cool shots by doing this, but if you want a car lit by the book, big bounce card type objects will do it for you.

If you go to the discussions on the flickr group and search for "car", you'll get a bunch of good threads.

01-08-2008, 09:47 AM

Originally Posted by dtownley1

Another thing to experiment with, is HDR images. Photoshop can do this for you (through File>Automate if I remember correctly) but since it's still a new technique, the results aren't always great. Still, it could help with some of the tones. Haven't tried it yet with high ISO so it may not help, but it could help with the image to have a better tonal range, instead of so many dark tones.

Hope that helps.

HDR is ok, but it gets over used and over processed more so than most other photography editing tools, imo. I think learning how to light is the best way.

01-08-2008, 10:15 AM

Try DxO. They have the best RAW converter IMO. They have a profile for your camera and 10 popular lenses. Download the trail and the film pack as well.

01-08-2008, 11:21 AM

The shot is underexposed, and the shadows unnatural because of the artificial, misdirected lighting.

Set the camera on a stable tripod and try shooting without the flash. Position the near side of the vehicle so that it faces the available ambient light. Keep the ISO down to 200 (which is indeed the minimum available ISO for the D40). Expose properly, and post-process using a noise filter.

I use Lightroom, and while it has its own built-in adjustable noise filter, I prefer the stand-alone Noise Ninja program. You can find it here: http://www.picturecode.com/

01-08-2008, 12:55 PM

right im back, sorry been busy

right first thing is the noise issue, im taking them straigh from raw to tif then tif to jpeg as flickr wont load the tif, even they are noisey and flickr is compresing them

hdr is to much yes i use it for shot i need it for and to give the effect but these never need that, hdr can cause worse noise if not done right if the shadows and highligh are pushed to far!

as for flashes with cars bare strobes seems to work great and yes it off camera via cactus triggers



a lot of the boys ive spoken to use either bare flash or soft box as the umbrella leaves a undesired shadow casted on to the car

ps ive been shooting for around ayear now so i understand iso hdr noise etc i just cudnt figure why it was compresing like this cheers all

01-08-2008, 01:05 PM

also shooting at 1600 is noisey but 200 should not be noisey who ever mentioned about hdr