How to Shoot Noise-free Images at Ridiculously High ISO

Ok so I discovered this neat little trick completely by accident. But upon further investigation I found out that I can shoot some impressively clean and sharp images at ISOs such as 51200 or 102400!

Yes, you read that right. And before you start calling it bullshit, here’s a quick before/after shot for your viewing pleasure!

Hi res: http://imgur.com/a/PUIKr

Yeah. Crazy, right? I mean not only the After image is clean, it has a ton more detail which would have been completely obliterated had I used standard noise reduction tools in Lightroom or Capture One etc. So let’s find out how it’s done, and how you can do it too.

Before we go any further, this trick is useful in a very specific situation. One basic requirement for this solution is that your subject needs to be absolutely still. As in, like a dead rock still. This won’t work in case of portraits or such, but situations like landscapes, nightscape, architecture, macro, or other situations where you don’t have a tripod to pull off a long exposure, or a fast enough lens, or if there’s just not enough light at all can really benefit from this method.

Alright, so let’s get into it. Here’s what you will need:

A camera



A subject

A steady-ish hand

Adobe Photoshop

Either a computer with a ton of RAM (16GB at least), or the patience of a monk

For best results you should be shooting in RAW format, but you can get just about 85% there by using JPEGs as well.

Let’s begin!

As the premise is, you have an incredibly dark scene and you don’t have the option of a long exposure for whatever reason.

Step 1: Dial in the aperture that you need, whether for the sake of sharpness or for wider depth of field.

Step 2: Dial in the shutter speed that’s minimum of 1/focal length. So if your composition is at 50mm, your shutter speed should be 1/50 at least. But here, it’s better you go a notch higher, and make it at least 1/1.5X the focal length.

Step 3: By this time you must be thinking, “Damn, I can’t see shit. Gonna have to crank up whtat ISO real high to get decent exposure!” No worries. Dial that baby up as high as you need to till the scene is decently exposed.

Step 4: Done? Now take a deep breath, steady yourself, tuck those elbows in, and shoot a bunch of frames. Try to keep the composition as consistent as possible, but don’t sweat it if there’s a little movement here & there. What’s important is that all images MUST be sharp.

Usually anything above 16 clicks is sufficient, but you won’t need more than 32 at max.

Step 5: Import the images you just shot into Photoshop, and open them as layers. If you imported them into Lightroom, just select all images, right click on any of them, and choose Edit In > Open as Layers in Photoshop. If you are importing straight into Photoshop, go to File > Scripts > Load Files Into Stack.

This will take a long time if you’re importing a lot of RAW files, so go get a fresh cup of coffee or something meanwhile.

Step 6: Once all the images open as Layers in Photoshop, select all the layers, and go to Edit > Auto-Align Layers. If you imported directly into Photoshop, you can select the bottom two options in the Load Layers dialog box named Attempt to Auto Align Source Images and Create Smart Object after Loading Layers, as that is our Step 7.



Step 7: If you didn’t create a smart object during the import, now is the time. Select all the layers, go to Layers > Smart Objects > Create Smart Object. Give it some time as it loads up all the files into a single Smart Object.

By now your computer must be right on the edge of it’s hardware’s capabilities, so experiencing a laggy performance is normal.

And now for the fun part!

Step 8: Go to Layer > Smart Objects > Stack Mode and choose Mean. You can also select Median as that gives a slightly sharper result with a bit more noise. But in my experience, Mean usually gives the best balance.

Now let it run it’s little algorithm, and once it’s all done, it will spit out a surprisingly clean and sharp image! Here’s a couple of 100% crops from one of the test runs I did:

Hi res: http://imgur.com/a/ISjvQ

Hi res: http://imgur.com/a/GgIy9

Hi res: http://imgur.com/a/Ur9v8

Just look at the lines, the detail in the granite, the edges of the fonts, the texture on the blue tiles. It’s crazy!

And the best part? If you imported RAW files, you can STILL go to Filters > Camera RAW and edit it as a RAW file. Spending some time fine tuning the image, adding some micro-contrast etc can enhance the sharpness even further, and get you a pretty spectacular result!



Now since these images will usually be shot at high ISOs so the dynamic range is going to be quite limited. But it’s still better than a grainy as shit image, or worse, no image!

I hope it made some sense, and hope you can make some great images using this method. I’m all open to feedback & ideas, so leave me a note or two in the comments. Happy shooting!