Cleaning Up Noise

[Landlocation]

I am looking for suggestions on how to clean up the noise on this 35mm scan, looking to print this to a 14x20 image, have tried a few steps but I think there is more that I can do, ?????? Thanks, Kim

 

[JeffK]

Image?

 

[Landlocation]

Whoops , I thought I had attached it. Thanks.

 

[JeffK]

I've actually been playing with Adobe Sharpen AI - did the trial and bought it. Now looking for excuses to use it.
The shot was quite blurry aside from noisy.
So I ran it thru the software then back in Photoshop, I used the Reduce Noise filter without preserving details, and then Surface Blur.
Got a decent result with more details and less noise. Let me know what you think.
- Jeff

 

[thebestcpu]

Here is my try. There was not to much noise yet adjusted tones a bit as well
John Wheeler

 

[Landlocation]

Here is my try. There was not to much noise yet adjusted tones a bit as well
John Wheeler
View attachment 120197

 

[Landlocation]

That is impressive, now I just need t o know how to do this, have more to work on, also have one that has some real bad markings on it , looks like something from the negative, neg is about 60 years old.

 

[thebestcpu]

HI @Landlocation
I rushed out my image and unlike @JeffK, totally forgot to include the steps on my approach. My apologies, rushing off to dinner and I left it off. Here are the steps.
- I used Topaz DeNoise to reduced the noise. I used manual mode to get a reasonable balance between noise reduction and sharpening other areas. I saved as TIFF so as not to introduce any additional issues from JPEG compression.
- I brought the TIFF file into PS and converted it into a Smart Object so I could apply filters as Smart Filters where I could go back and make adjustments as necessary.
- I then used the Camera Raw Filter for most of the other adjustments
--I used the graduated filter from top going downwards and increased the exposure since the top had a bit of dimming.
-- In the normal edit section I
---increased the contrast quite a bit (this also makes it look sharper
---reduced shadows slider and increased highlights slider to taste
---added a bit of clarity again to taste
---and added a bit of texture which does a decent job to fool the eye into sharpenss
---I did not use DeHaze yet for a grayscale image you might want to give that a try as well
--In the Details Section
---I increased the sharpness a little bit

I did not do much more yet for my own final product, I would do some cropping at the edges of the negative.

Hope adding the explanation if useful
John Wheeler

 

[Landlocation]

Thanks for the details, now see if I can duplicate that, Ha.