Collared trogon (female), Trinidad, West Indies Nikon D850 at ISO 6400
Do your high-iso images seem noisy? Chances are that it has nothing to do with your camera, and a lot to do with your image processing. Here are some tips for dealing with noise in your raw digital images.
Learn to eliminate sharpening artifacts on your images in Lightroom.
I’m pleased to announce the immediate availability of my latest video tutorial, Get Sharp with Lightroom. In this two-hour presentation, I’ll teach you all about getting perfectly sharp images directly in Lightroom. I also cover noise reduction, local sharpening, and how to create unique effects like gaussian blur with Lightroom.
Get Sharp with Lightroom is available as a direct download from Luminescence of Nature Press and includes a printable PDF notes package.
D800e test image (full frame view) shot with Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 AFS G Nikkor. 1/200s @f/11, ISO 200.
The Nikon D800 has a 36x24mm (FX format) sensor with 36-megapixel resolution. How do you get the best quality from this amazing sensor? By using good technique and properly sharpening your images, of course. If you shoot JPEG with the D800/e, you’re doing yourself a disservice if you want to make large prints (or crop). In my initial testing, I’m seeing that the sharpening halos produced by the in-camera sharpening algorithms (Nikon Picture Controls) are a little too large to bring out the finest details. So, how should you attack your D800 images? I’ve taken a look at sharpening routines in three different programs: ACR 7.1/ Lightroom 4, Capture NX2, and Aperture. When you sharpen properly, you’ll be amazed at what pops out of the RAW files from the D800!
Before you begin, do keep in mind that no amount of sharpening is going to produce great results unless you’ve got a properly focused image and a well-supported camera. If you had camera shake or subject motion from a slow shutter speed, there isn’t much you can do.
I’m pleased to announce the immediate availability of a brand-new video workshop from Luminescence of Nature Press™. Sharpening Techniques for Capture NX 2 is a comprehensive instructional video in crystal-clear 720p HD that covers all of the major sharpening methods in Nikon’s Capture NX 2. I’ve even made the QuickTime movie file easy to navigate, because I’ve added chapter markers to it. The 1280 x 720 resolution of the video file means that you’ll have no trouble whatsoever seeing the menus and other screen items as I walk viewers through all the sharpening techniques in Capture NX 2.
In this training video, you’ll learn:
How sharpening works
USM Tool
High Pass/Overlay filter
Advanced control over sharpening with blending modes
Selective/Creative Sharpening Techniques with brushes/control points
Practical examples of landscape, portrait, and high-ISO sharpening in Capture NX 2
How to perform output sharpening for print and web destinations in Capture NX 2