Why is it necessary to sharpen images?  Noise on images is a daily issue for any photographer. If more sensitive film is used, or not enough light, the amount of noise will increase resulting in grainy images. In order to combat these side effects, tools to reduce noise or grain are applied. Depending on the quality of the original image it is decided to simply down sample it, or to apply more aggressive tools for noise reduction.

While optimizing the image, you can’t expect miracles. The term is noise reduction, not noise removal. There will always be a percentage of noise on the image, which often is desired to make the image look more natural. The second thing to keep in mind is that any reduction of noise on an image will cause loss of details. The challenge is to find the proper balance, to achieve the highest level of detail with the lowest amount of noise, in order to get the best results possible.

Noise removal tools can easily be used too much, leading to unreal looking images with soft and blurry parts that look like a special filter was applied to produce the effect. Once applied the image is much harder to sharpen as this leads to an increase in noise, more than there was in the original, due to the noise reduction actions applied to the image. As a rule, always first do the sharpening of the image before applying noise or grain reduction tools, and only sharpen an image if you really have to.
Most of the time, the easiest way for noise removal delivering best results is simply to avoid sharpening the image.

In extreme cases there are add-ons available for Photoshop provided by other companies that work better than Photoshop’s built in tools. Tools like Grain Surgery from Infinity offer professional noise reduction tools providing more control of the noise reduction process. This is only one of the third party suppliers of noise reduction tools for Photoshop, there are many others all doing an equally good job reducing noise or grain levels on the image. Which one to use is a matter of personal opinion, try a few and stick with the one you like working with best.

While working, you will find that the only time these add-ons are required is with severe under exposure, or in some cases extremely high ISO film is being used. In most other cases the built in tools of Photoshop will do the job nicely.

M.A.H.

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