Photoshop

Reduce image noise and JPEG artifacts

Image noise appears as random extraneous pixels that aren’t part of the image detail. Noise can be caused by photographing with a high ISO setting on a digital camera, underexposure, or shooting in a dark area with a long shutter speed. Low‑end consumer cameras usually exhibit more image noise than high‑end cameras. Scanned images may have image noise caused by the scanning sensor. Often, the film’s grain pattern appears in the scanned image.

Image noise can appear in two forms: luminance (grayscale) noise, which makes an image look grainy or patchy, and color noise, which is usually visible as colored artifacts in the image.

Luminance noise may be more pronounced in one channel of the image, usually the blue channel. You can adjust the noise for each channel separately in Advanced mode. Before opening the filter, examine each channel in your image separately to see if noise is prevalent in one channel. You preserve more image detail by correcting one channel rather than making an overall correction to all channels.

  1. Choose Filter > Noise > Reduce Noise.
  2. Zoom in on the preview image to get a better view of image noise.
  3. Set options:
    Strength
    Controls the amount of luminance noise reduction applied to all image channels.

    Preserve Details
    Preserves edges and image details such as hair or texture objects. A value of 100 preserves the most image detail, but reduces luminance noise the least. Balance the Strength and Preserve Details controls to fine‑tune noise reduction.

    Reduce Color Noise
    Removes random color pixels. A higher value reduces more color noise.

    Sharpen Details
    Sharpens the image. Removing noise reduces image sharpness. Use the sharpening control in the dialog box or use one of the other Photoshop sharpening filters later to restore sharpness.

    Remove JPEG Artifacts
    Removes blocky image artifacts and halos caused by saving a image using a low JPEG quality setting.

  4. If luminance noise is more prevalent in one or two color channels, click the Advanced button and then choose the color channel from the Channel menu. Use the Strength and Preserve Details controls to reduce noise in that channel.