Hi everyone, in this video we're going to look at reducing noise...

that crusty stuff that appears when your ISO is really high...

you're shooting in low light, or at night time...

going to go from this to this, nice...

and once we've done noise reduction, which is relatively easy...

there's a few little tips and tricks for it...

we're going to go a bit further and add a mask...

to sharpen up the really interesting parts of the owl...

that might have been lost through the noise reduction...

let's have a look at them.

So we're going to go from this, that's had the noise reduced...

and enhance it by making his eyes pop, like this...

oh, handsome bird, before after, nice...

we'll also look at adding a mask to the background...

to really kind of separate them from the background...

and we're going to practice masks, but also look at some of the problems...

when you are masking something using some of the AI features...

that has a bunch of noise, doesn't always work, but I'll show you a way around it...

all right, friend, let's get in there...

I promised myself I wouldn't say, make it pop in this whole course...

it just popped out, oh, double pop.

First up we should have an album from earlier, called Ruru, that's our owl...

these are jpegs from earlier, and we can work on those...

but as we know now, raw files will have a bit more information...

to clean up our noisy images, so let's add those.

I'm going to drag them straight from the 'Exercise File'...

there is a folder called '08 Noise'...

and bring in these two, click them in, let's add them...

and we're going to open them up, that's why sometimes it's better...

like I'm normally on this view, Grid view...

and then there's this other option which is a bit more square-ey...

but you can actually see, CR3 is Canon's kind of newish raw file format...

we don't want the jpeg, so I'm going to pick this one here, open it up.

Now this shot here, shot at night, it's got a chunk of noise...

pretty nice, but let's see what we can do to get rid of as much noise as possible...

let's also have a look at the I key just to see what the ISO is...

not crazy high, but still introducing a lot of noise...

now we're going to flick between 100% and 200% in this one...

because it kind of gets in a lot of the detail of the bird...

clicking and dragging to move around...

we're going to toggle between 100, Fit, and 200...

you can't just work in one when you're dealing with this noise...

you've got to kind of see it from a few different vantage points.

Now what you'll notice is, if we hit 'E' for editing...

if you go down to this Details panel, so we've been in Light, Color...

I twirl them up just to keep them nice and tidy...

if you go to the Details, there is actually...

some noise reduction going on by default...

Lightroom adds a chunk of color noise reduction, 25...

and sharpening to counteract that.

So whenever we add a bunch of noise reduction it's...

actually, I'll show you on this one...

do there's Color Noise and then there's Noise, kind of black and white noise...

if I crank that right up everything gets really smooth...

so it's really common to counteract that with sharpening...

to a degree, you don't want to crank them both up, so I'm going to reset that...

who remembers how to reset this whole little panel, remember, you don't?

Hold down 'Option' key, 'Alt' key on a PC, and you can just click up there...

all right, so we're back, so there is noise in there, color noise...

let's go in even further, so let's go into like 300, just have a look...

you see, all the colored specs, if I double click that to put it back...

before, after, before, after, can you see it there?

So color noise is gone, it's easy to get rid of...

because Lightroom does it for us, what's trickier is...

how much to get rid of this other grain, or noise...

now what we're going to do here is I want to keep a good detail...

like that eyes are pretty nice detail...

and the trouble at the moment is that it's all quite dark...

so what I'm going to do is I'm just going to go to Light and hit the--

actually, I don't even have to...

go to the Auto option just to do some auto contrast...

you know, I can definitely go back and work on this afterwards...

but I need to get rid of a chunk of the noise first...

so I'm just going to hit 'Auto', and then I'm going to use this to work through.

So how much noise reduction? All of it, but it gets really milky...

so there's just a balance of like back and forth...

it's okay to have noise, I think we say that because there is noise...

but you know a little bit of noise doesn't wreck the image...

it's not like pixelization, where it's all kind of blocky and gross...

it is just a bit of real life, noise that happens in these really low lights.

So what I'm trying to do is find this medium...

I'm looking at this edge, this contrast is a really good one, plus the eye...

because I want to get rid of it but I also don't want the eyes to go all milky...

so there's a, there is a, a balance or a trade-off...

between milkiness and noise reduction.

So I'm going to go sharpening up a little bit as well...

you can see, it crank it right up, it's not what I want...

I just want to increase the sharpening a little bit...

as I increase the noise reduction...

once you play with a little bit don't spend too long...

make sure you jump out to 'Fit'...

and then toggle this on and off, on, and off...

I can see it going, can you?

Might be a little harder from far away, who remembers how to go full screen?

'F', that's right...

I second guessed myself, I was like asking you...

I'm like, oh, is it F? I tapped it, we did it...

so this, you know, it's as large as it can be on my screen, it's quite big...

got to be 29", so it's great for that...

also 100%, that's as...

you know, before it's actually start zooming past it and start seeing pixels...

this is as good as it's going to get...

but also, we want to get into the nitty-gritty, so either 200, or 300%...

depending on your image, I need to see the giant owl eye.

Now if you want to get fancier, and often we do with noise reduction...

like this one's a pretty good example, pretty nice example...

but you're going to have worse images where you've got to do a bit more work...

and these features here will have this drop down, they're pretty advanced...

but I don't get into them too much except for noise reduction...

there's a bit of extra stuff you can do.

So noise reduction, up and down, then you can drag Detail up and down...

and it's just like another level to our noise reduction...

we can add more detail in, or back out again...

and this will differ depending on every image, there's no like magic number...

but it gives you a little bit of extra control.

The other thing with that control is -

I'm going to go in a little bit further, I'm going to go 300.

- is that it's sometimes hard to see when it's all colorful...

because we want to get rid of the noise...

and the noise is not colorful...

it's just this, like contrast, lights and dark speckled everywhere...

so what we can do is, we're getting advanced, prepare yourselves...

roll your shoulders, I'm doing it...

we're going to hold down the 'Option' key on a Mac, 'Alt' key on a PC...

and what's going to happen is, it's not going to reset it...

which it does for all these other ones...

that same key allows me to drag detail...

you can see, it just pulls all the color out...

and after that can be easier to see...

you know, you just keep dragging until you start seeing those artifacts...

can you see all those, like goop, that's the technical term, goop...

where it all just gets a bit spludgy, another technical word...

you want to just go, where you find it, and then come back a little bit...

then you can let go of that Alt key on a PC, Option key on a Mac...

before, after, before, after...

it's pretty amazing how far you can get...

but the balance always is how soft the image will get...

same with contrast, hold down the 'Option' key, drag it up...

spludgy again, different kind of spludgy, spludgy 2...

there's not a lot I can do before it starts...

I'm keeping an eye out here, a little bit more obvious out there, can you see it?

You have to play around with as well, it feels, like for me...

actually, to be honest there's not much different in contrast...

like up and down, there's a little bit...

but the noise comes so much with it that I'm not going to do anything with it...

this is different for all images...

and how high the ISO is, how much noise you have...

is it full dark, or is it like this, pretty dark but not full dark?

Let's twirl that back up, so any of these sliders inside Lightroom are collapsible...

so if you are transitioning from something like Lightroom Classic...

and you like that full control, they've just tidied them up...

just to give you kind of really good overall settings...

and if you do want to dive in a bit more...

you can get into them this way, they all have it...

also, you can drag the overall slider...

by holding down that 'Alt', or 'Option' key as well...

and it gives you just a really nice contrast...

I can really see it there...

getting perfect, but I know, perfect means milky...

so I'm going to find that balance of there...

oh, a little more...

all right, before, after, before, after.

So if you came for noise reduction, that's kind of it...

I'm going to show you some other tricks and tie in some of the other skills...

to try and get back...

wow, enhance this image, before, after...

the auto was good, did some great stuff to my actual subject...

but it's kind of over exposed the background here...

it's a bit too light, and also, another little trick is...

especially on your, like this bird's perfect...

with this really kind of striking eyes and...

you know, all these really interesting feathers in here...

so what we're going to do is we're going to throw in a mask...

and accentuate this and then push the background back...

because we know how to do masks now...

what I might do is look at the auto settings that went in here...

and I'm looking at my owl...

auto was good, was it good?

Just deciding what I need to change...

actually, it was pretty good...

Okay, I'm happy with that...

now I'm going to add a mask, I'm going to just close all these up...

I'm going to go, 'Masking' tool, what kind of mask? There's no like owl mask...

there's a subject, but I don't want the whole subject...

I just want this kind of T cross section of his face...

so I'm just going to use the 'Brush' tool ...

and I'm going to say, 'Brush Size'-- okay, I'm back, what happened?

My machine kind of crashed and died, here we go.

So I'm going to close that down, where were we?

So I'm going to get the brush, got to this...

that was all missing, then I started clicking, and it all just went went away...

so we've done our noise reduction, let's just check if it's still there...

is there, the details...

remember, a really good option is under these two...

Eyeball, means something's happened in Light, something's happened in Color...

something's happened in Detail, haven't done anything in these other three...

so, Mask time, Brush time...

the size wise, now I end up using-- this slide is fine...

but what you can do is, I use the scroll wheel on my mouse...

and just kind of wind it back and forth...

if you don't have a scroll wheel drag it over here...

if you have the scroll wheel wind it back in and out.

So we're going to paint the bird, actually, just paint across the T section.

So I'm going to make one that's kind of the size of its eye...

I'm going to paint there, there, kind of in there, I like these things here...

and I like it nice and fluffy...

that's why I've got a big brush because I don't want it to be very--

to have too hard edges, I want it to be kind of nice and fluffy...

oh, I don't like those guys...

Show Pins and Tools.

So, we've got it, let's go and-- I'm just going to work on my mask...

you might have to scroll down for it, you should see mask here...

if you don't, click on 'Mask' and click on this option here, 'Mask'...

and we're just going to do, I'm not sure yet...

I'm probably not going to deal with the exposure, maybe a tiny...

I'm going to leave exposure all right, probably do it with the rest of these...

so I have to come back to contrast because it's not doing a whole lot there...

I'm going to be at 100%...

So I'm watching that one...

I'm just looking for some contrast...

especially on the eyes, but also across those feathers...

so now I've got it, I can come back and maybe do a bit of contrast..

no, just losing too much detail...

that's probably him here...

I'll probably pull the whites down, the feathers are getting too much...

we're going to do the mask on and off, so let's turn the eyeball on and off...

just, can you see, oh, look at those eyes pop...

those kind of middle feathers as well, nice.

Let's go back to 'Fit' and let's just make sure it's not too glaringly obvious...

what you can do, remember, the whole mask can come down...

so I've done some adjustments to it, you can say...

actually, I'm just going to pull the mask back a little bit...

so everything that I've done here is just going to be...

toned down a little bit by that amount..

there's a little, look at that...

keep popping, you can go up...

add a little bit more of it...

actually, I was happy where it was, what I also might do is just warm it up...

so, you...

just a little bit, before...

before, after, before, after, you've got to click and hold it, Dan...

all right, I like it...

let's do one more mask...

because I'll show you some problems you might run into...

with noise, and trying to do a mask.

So let's add another master, I'm in 'Mask', I'm going to 'Create New Mask'...

and Select Subject is probably not going to work, let's have a look.

So I'm going to zoom in...

maybe, what are we going to do? 200%...

and it looks like it's done a pretty good job, but because it's noisy...

let's have a look, let's invert the mask...

can you see there, it's all gone a bit scraggly around there...

because it's quite noisy in the background, starting to blend into him...

so if I go and make adjustments, can you see it's...

just not a great fit because of the noise...

if I had maxed out the noise reduction I probably would get a better mask...

try it first, because that's a good way to get started...

and just kind of invert it and just do some crazy stuff...

to see whether the mask is going to be passable.

This isn't, so I'm going to say, you, my friend are going to be...

I right clicked it, and I say 'Del'...

so we're going to paint them in the long way...

so I'm going to go to 'Fit'...

and I am going to go to a 'New Mask ', going to say, 'Brush', good old brush...

I'm going to paint him in, because he's easier, and then invert it.

So I'm going to start with a nice big brush, just paint up his middle...

and remember, with my brush...

over here I've got the size up...

the feather I have got cranked up...

the flow I've got cranked up to maximum just to save time...

just to save time...

I want to get to the edges I'll do something slightly different...

so just paint them in...

shrink the brush down either with the slider...

or I'm using, remember, my mouse wheel...

and now I'm going to go and do a really quick pass around this edge.

So I'm going to zoom in...

hold down my 'Command' key on a Mac, 'Ctrl' key on a PC to zoom in...

to something like this...

brush size, I'm going to-- that looks good...

and I'm just going to color it in...

and the feather I'm going to lower down just a little bit...

because he has a pretty distinctive edge, it's not too fluffy...

you have to play around with like, comes with a little bit of experience, like...

that's not really sharp, it was it like a box...

we might lower it down, you know, the-- can't talk and paint...

lower down the feather even more they have a really sharp edge...

really definitive edge...

but he's quite a long distance away, and there's a lot of noise...

he's got feathers, he's not a box, so I'm just going to work my way around...

make my brush size bigger and smaller...

hold my spacebar key and drag it around, and color him in...

this is going to take a little while, I'm going to fast forward it...

and the editor will pause it if I think of anything, like genius, to talk about.

All right, genius...

hold down the 'Option' key to remove parts if you go over the edges...

oh no, colored over the lines...

hold down the 'Option' key on a Mac, 'Alt' key on a PC, get rid of it.

Now the other thing I want to add to you is...

I'm not being particularly good here...

because I know, whatever I do is going to be wrong...

and I'll show you what that means at the moment...

so I'm just going to finish coloring this in, 'spacebar' to move around...

a bigger brush, kind of smaller brush to the edges...

and then I can color in this kind of gap here.

I'm going to zoom out using a different shortcut, 'Command -'...

kind of just takes a step out...

'Ctrl -' on a PC...

because now I can get out to here and go, actually...

I can color in over here...

all right, fast mode again.

All right, "Why did he say don't worry about it?"

Well, because what you can do is...

with this mask selected, you can say...

show me, not a color overlay but show me on, all these different options...

you can see, on white...

look how badly I did that, it looks fine in red...

but I'm going to do it on white and paint the rest of this in...

you wait there.

All right, and the other little tip is that...

when I'm kind of coloring in this chunk the edge needs to be nice and feathered...

when I get down here, I lowered the feather quite a bit...

so then I'm kind of painting on a nice bit more of a block...

just to make sure everything's gone...

there we go.

'Fit', there's my mask...

not perfect, good enough...

and what we're going to do now is turn it back to our Color Overlay...

and we're going to invert it, so we're going to go, 'Invert'...

because I want to actually lower the background...

just easy to paint the bird in...

than it was to paint the whole background...

you can paint the background if you like, it takes a long time...

there's a little bit across there, isn't there?

So now I've inverted it, I have to hold down the 'Option' key...

to remove anything from the bird...

there's little bits of red in the bird, which is...

which is interesting...

it's making my mask go badly...

all of that, so that I could grab my mask, and just lower the exposure.

Now with a mask, be prepared...

there might be a little bit of ghosting around the outside...

so depends on how much you want to work on it, I don't want to do too much...

like in terms of the exposure, and like playing...

you know, making the background darker...

I'm probably going to go too far, and then lower the amount afterwards...

so just kind of, I'm going to work through it.

All right, so there's dark bits on the bird, which looks like a bad mask...

but just parts of the bird...

let's turn the mask on and off, quite dark on the edges there...

but the ghosting around here we need to get rid of...

so now I'm going to work on my mask so I'm going to go from here to my mask...

make sure I'm working on this mask, and what I'm going to do is zoom in...

I'm going to go into 300%, not going to go in that far, I'm going to go 200%...

and what I'm going to do is...

do I want to be adding to it or removing from it, that is the key...

I might turn it on so I can see it...

actually, no, just turn it off...

and I want to add to it, because it's red I want to add more red...

to kind of push in a little bit, let's get rid of that ghosting.

So I'm going to make sure my Flow's up, my Feather's up, size wise...

and then, can you see, I can just kind of just rub the edges...

I want to go too far into them...

because we don't want to go all the way into them...

because it'll make him dark, it'll bring that mask, that darker exposure in...

but I can just go and touch it up...

that's why I don't spend too much time getting it perfect on the...

you know, when I'm kind of coloring the bird in...

it's because I can touch up what's actually obvious later on...

because there's some parts that you could spend ages fixing...

but there's just no need to, that's great.

This bit here doesn't, this bit, handy, a little bit of work...

I'm going to go about my merry way again...

going around, checking for any ghosting...

here we go.

All right, back to 'Fit', nope, in for more ghosting...

I like it, and I'm just going to lower the amount a bit...

and let's turn the eyeball off on that mask...

so big change, oh, I like it...

like always, I'm going to go back to my main one...

I'm going to go back to my Effects...

I'm going to add a little bit of a vignette to pull it into the middle as well.

So we started with looking at reducing green, that wasn't particularly hard...

I've got to remember those little tricks...

where we can hold down the 'Option' key on a Mac', 'Alt' key on a PC...

to kind of convert it to black and white...

so we can get a better look at what's going on...

you need to be okay with a bit of noise...

because to get rid of it all, it gets a little bit milky...

and then we moved on to kind of enhancing little bits with a mask...

because we can now, with our sweet masking skills...

and we learned that with a chunk of noise...

some of the AI masking options need a little bit of extra help...

like spending five minutes painting, painting your owl red...

you've got to decide what its purpose is...

if this is an art print, sure, probably, spend half an hour hour, an hour...

painting in the mask...

getting it perfect, make sure you're getting rid of the ghosting...

if this is going out small on Instagram...

I bet you, I probably get away with that automatic subject mask...

and nobody would know.

Now to practice your new found skills, we have got one from earlier on...

if we go to All Photos, and type in our sweet "bird"...

I know it's called, where we are, oh, the Dab bird...

but not everyone knows that, but we know it's a bird...

so we can find it hopefully, go to All Photos...

I'm stuck, stuck on the owl...

let's go to 'G'...

yeah, oh, back.

So All Photos, and we can say, "bird", bird please...

and there we are...

look for the ones, not the jpeg, look for the ones that are Canon raw files...

and again, these are shot really early in the morning...

and we did some auto settings...

but what you can do is, you can right click them, and actually, say--

I actually open one of them, which one do we want?

That one's cool...

is to reset it, so 'Command R', and start again with this one...

and what you'll notice is, if you get into it quite deep...

you'll see there's a bit of noise in here...

something that you can practice cleaning up, look how cool that is...

so have a practice, you don't need to submit these ones...

just another good example to work with.