Last week I shared with your this image of myself that my son took with his little Kodak camera. There I was photographing the caramel apples & he snapped this shot of my under the table. Look at all that noise in this shot. YIKES. His camera does not handle back light too well. But I really wanted to use this to illustrate how I set up my food shots for last week’s post. I thought I would share with you today how I was able to reduce the image noise just a bit to make it a bit more usable in my opinion.
This is what it looked like when I opened it in ACR. I adjusted the contrast, clarity, blacks & vibrance up just a bit & reduced the brightness.
This deepened those black areas that were speckled with light, giving the image a slightly smoother look.
Then I used one of my oldies but goodies actions from My 4 Hens called Superb. It’s a black & white action but it gives a nice hazy layer (vintage feel) which sort of counters the grainy areas. It gives a haze over the whole image instead of the noise being more prominent in some areas than others. The next thing I did was reduce the size for the web. The fact that it wasn’t blown up to full size made a huge difference. The bigger those noisy pixels are, obviously the more prominent they will look. I then sharpened just a bit & that was it. While it’s far from perfect- I was happy I was able to make it to where I could live with it.
Linking with: 52 Weeks of Happiness, Tuesday Around the World & Sweet Shot Tuesday
Tamar Strauss-Benjamin says
What a difference! Thanks for the tips!
secret mom thoughts says
Nice edit and tips.
Molly says
I love that your son took your picture…. my kids seem to be learning the love of the camera from me too. Which has resulted in some images of me that will never ever see the light of day!
Mollyxxx
Lori Australia says
Interesting post – thanks for the tips. And it is great that your son is having fun with a camera too:)
Linda R says
I think your son is going to take after his mom.. I love the photo. And thanks for the tip on how you edited your shot. I tried to comment on your SHS photos but could not.. But let me just say here that I loved them..
Hugs~
Kim Reardon Cunningham says
Nice look to the edit!
No Greater Love says
You are so good. I’m always in awe of what you can accomplish. 🙂
Serendipity is Sweet says
Great tips Gina!
Tisha says
Thanks for posting these tips!! They will certainy come in handy!!