Downtown Beaumont, Texas

[Bombsight]

c&c welcome

[groovyone]

Wow, trippy processing! I dig it.

[bburton]

Originally Posted by groovyone

Wow, trippy processing!

Agreed. I'm a big advocate of "pushing the envelope" in IR post processing; just be aware that "noise" -- especially in the sky -- will also become more pronounced as we stretch those IR boundaries.

[smoothassilk]

Thats cool I like it.

Mark

[stephenpinn]

Very very cool Mark, well done

[tc95]

Nice colors...Bruce is right...try using the program Bruce turned me onto Noise Ninja...seems to work well...

Keep it up...

[Bombsight]

Originally Posted by bburton

Agreed. I'm a big advocate of "pushing the envelope" in IR post processing; just be aware that "noise" -- especially in the sky -- will also become more pronounced as we stretch those IR boundaries.

I'm new to the "reduce noise" group.... and yea, there is a lot of noise in this shot.
Is Noise NiNja the best solution? I've tried noise reduction with CS5 ... but all it seems to do for me is reverse the "unsharp mask" I applied prior to.

Why is there so much noise within infrared shots?

[bburton]

Originally Posted by Bombsight

Is Noise NiNja the best solution? I've tried noise reduction with CS5 ... but all it seems to do for me is reverse the "unsharp mask" I applied prior to.

Why is there so much noise within infrared shots?

Noise, contrast and sharpness are all bugaboos in IR photography: intrinsic problems which require much more post processing than visible light photography. In my experience, everything out of the camera needs rework -- no matter the quality of the camera sensor or the lens glass or the in-camera settings.

But, from the creative point of view, the real fun of IR comes when the post processing begins. Of course, not every photographer feels that way or wants to spend their creativity fixing "problems" that are not necessary in the first place if one would just stick to visible light photography.

As far as noise goes, here's an older article which explains why there's more in IR (I only understand about half of what is said):

wrotniak.net: Infrared Photography with a Digital Camera

When I first got into IR, I tried four or five major brands of noise reduction software. Eventually, I found that for the particular and pernicious type of noise inherent in IR photos, Noise Ninja was the best at removing noise yet preserving sharpness. BTW, I shoot in RAW and after some basic tweaking in my conversion software (Bibble 5), I remove noise as the first step in post processing in Photoshop with the Noise Ninja plug-in. I usually lasso the sky portions of a photo to selectively apply Noise Ninja. Finally, I apply USM in PS as my last step in post processing.

Here's a quick example of Noise Ninja on your photo (my apologies) along with a boost in contrast and a bit of sharpening. These steps, of course, work better on the larger, non-web-sized files.

Have fun experimenting. Glad you're with us. Be extra careful, however: once the IR bug bites, you'll have it bad. There's no known cure for the addiction.

[DiskoJoe]

too much noise reduction. now the cloud look unnatural and alot of the detail has been sacrificed. of course ive never done much IR photography so i really couldnt give you a better suggestion then burton, hes the man for IR.

[bburton]

Originally Posted by DiskoJoe

too much noise reduction. now the cloud look unnatural and alot of the detail has been sacrificed.

Yes, that's true, but as I said . . . these steps work much better and retain more detail when working with larger TIFF files for example; for this demonstration, all I had was a considerably reduced JPEG.

[princer7]

I gave it a stab using Nik Software's Color Efex (removed green color cast and contrast adjustment), Define (selective noise reduction), and Vivesa (add slight structure and decrease color saturation in clouds). Changed luminance in the greens to be a little darker in Lightroom.

I have used Noise Ninja in the past and have found Define to be much easier to use. Can do selective noise reduction for either/both color or contrast. Adjustments can also be based on global or selective colors.

Hoping to have my converted 30D back from Lifepixel this coming week.

[bburton]

Originally Posted by princer7

I gave it a stab using Nik Software's Color Efex (removed green color cast and contrast adjustment), Define (selective noise reduction), and Vivesa (add slight structure and decrease color saturation in clouds). Changed luminance in the greens to be a little darker in Lightroom.

Congratulations! You've done a great job with this. I much prefer your shade of green.

[princer7]

I am dying to get the 30D in and give it a good workout.

Mark, I really like the composition on your photo. The road has a nice curve that leads the viewer though the image.

[Bombsight]

Thanks for showing the different possibilities, everyone.
I need to seriously look into some kind of NR other than cs5.

Here is another one taken just to the right of the first...