Photography Tips – A Solution for Noise at High ISOs

I read as much as I can about techniques that hopefully will help me improve my photography.  Yesterday I ran across a wonderful article by Dave Seeram published in a PBASE article that outlined a technique for eliminating noise in photographs captured at high ISOs.

Here is how the technique works:

1.  Set your camera to a very high ISO.  I used ISO 3200.

2.  Take three photographs of a subject using a tripod.

3.  Open all three photographs in Photoshop CS4 Extended.

4.  In Photoshop create a stack of the three photos.  In CS4 Extended: >File >Scripts >Load Files Into Stack.  Select “Add Open Files” and check the two boxes:  “Attempt to Automatically Align Source Images” and “Create Smart Object After Loading Layers.”

5.  Then, >Layer  >Smart Objects  >Stack Mode >Mean.

As Dave explains, noise is random, thus when one averages the three shots the noise is reduced dramatically.

Does it work?  Nothing like trying something new, I grabbed my camera, mounted it on a home made tripod, used an external shutter release and point the assembly at a hopelessly poor lit scene of a group of boxes in my den.

Here is a single shot taken at ISO 3200 with the Panasonic GF1.

Click on Photograph for a larger version.

And here is the photograph made from three shots using Dave’s technique.

Click on Photograph for a larger version.

As one can see, the first shot is filled with noise and the stacked image, while still noisy, is far less so.

I hope to use the technique in future shoots, although most likely not as ISO 3200, particularly with the Panasonic GF1.  But, I can only imagine how the technique will work if I am forced to shoot at ISO 1600 with my Canon EOS 5D II.

I am grateful to Dave for the technique.  I think it is wonderful that people like Dave take the time to educate others; one of the great things about the photographic community is the willingness to mentor.