Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
Step Three:
Now that the color noise has been dealt
with, chances are your image looks grainy.
So to reduce this type of noise (called lumi-
nance noise), drag the Luminance slider to
the right until the noise is greatly reduced
(as shown here). I gotta tell you, this baby
works wonders all by itself, but you have
additional control with the other two sliders
beneath it. The “catch” is this: your image
can look clean, or it can have lots of sharp
detail, but it's kinda tricky to have both. The
Detail slider (in Adobe speak the “luminance
noise threshold”) really helps with seriously
blurry images (like this one). So, if you think
your image looks a little blurry now, drag
the Detail slider to the right—just know this
may make your image a little more noisy.
If, instead, you want a cleaner looking image,
drag the Detail slider to the left—just know
that you'll now be sacrificing a little detail to
get that smooth, clean look (there's always
a trade-off, right?).
Step Four:
The other slider under Luminance is the
Contrast slider. Again, this one really makes
a difference on seriously noisy images. Of
course, it has its own set of trade-offs.
Dragging the Contrast slider to the right
protects the photo's contrast, but it might
give you some blotchy-looking areas
(the key word here is “might”). You get
smoother results dragging the slider to the
left, but you'll be giving up some contrast.
I know, I know, why can't you have detail
and
smooth results? That's coming in
Lightroom 9. The real key here is to try to
find that balance, and the only way to do
that is experiment on the image you have
onscreen. For this particular image, most of
the luminance noise was gone after dragging
the Luminance s lider to around 55 (drag-
ging much higher didn't yield better results).
I wanted to keep more detail (because of
the lights on the bridge), so I increased
the Detail amount to around 70. I left the
Contrast slider as is. The before/after is
shown here.
