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From the what's new in Classic 9.2 blog

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Zenon

Did you turn it off and on again?
Joined
Jan 13, 2017
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2,320
Lightroom Experience
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Lightroom Version
Classic
Lightroom Version Number
9.1
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  1. macOS 10.15 Catalina
You will notice that different defaults by ISO are no longer natively supported, as Lightroom’s noise reduction has improved and they’re generally no longer needed.

Was the NR reduction improvement part of this update?
 
No, this goes back years. Whereas in ACR’s early days, you needed different slider values for every ISO, these days it’s smarter. 25 on 6400 ISO automatically applies more noise reduction than on 100 ISO without you needing to do a thing.
 
25 on 6400 ISO automatically applies more noise reduction than on 100 ISO without you needing to do a thing.
I don't usually use noise reduction but I just had a quick look at some of my images. The NR is set to '0" for all of them no matter the ISO. That's the default? But there's a noise reduction going on underneath that I can't see or control?
 
0 is the default, correct, and 0 is no noise reduction. If you were to apply noise reduction, Lightroom's smart enough to know which camera sensor you were using, to optimize the noise reduction accordingly.
 
No, this goes back years. Whereas in ACR’s early days, you needed different slider values for every ISO, these days it’s smarter. 25 on 6400 ISO automatically applies more noise reduction than on 100 ISO without you needing to do a thing.

Thanks Victoria. I didn't know that.
 
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In classic versions prior to 9.2, the Presets tab Preferences dialog contained checkbox to store presets with catalog as well as "restore" buttons for various types of presets. In the screen shots i've seen for LR/9.2
 
0 is the default, correct, and 0 is no noise reduction.
And I would offer that unless you shoot at base ISO (and maybe not even then) applying some noise reduction is a good thing. Try it, decide for yourself, but none is... well, none. What's the saying: All things in moderation. Applies to most slider values. o_O
 
thanks. All the screen shots from "what's new in 9.2 articles must only be showing part of the dialog box
 
And I would offer that unless you shoot at base ISO (and maybe not even then) applying some noise reduction is a good thing. Try it, decide for yourself, but none is... well, none. What's the saying: All things in moderation. Applies to most slider values. o_O
I do agree. I go for 15-20 for most files. That works pretty well across all ISO's unless I go a bit crazy.
 
Am I right to presume that the noise reduction being applied to most images is luminance NR, not color?

And, is this primarily to compensate for the accentuation of noise that's caused by the use of Clarity and Texture, or is it independent of that, so if Clarity and/or Texture are used to any extent, the amount of NR applied is greater?

A strategy I have been using to reduce noise in areas such as skies with more uniformity is to apply Edge Masking at a high enough level to mask out the Sharpening (that is applied at 40 by default now).
 
Color noise reduction defaults to 25 for raw files, which is generally about right.

For general noise reduction, we're talking sensor noise most frequently caused by high ISO, rather than excessive editing.
 
@camner your question is actually interesting. I've been doing it for years, even at base ISO, without thinking about it. I did some experimenting and there's something (noise maybe) that gives a grain like appearance even at base ISO. Adding in a bit of noise reduction makes it better. Reducing sharpening makes it better, though maybe not in a good way. It is an interesting question whether it is really "noise" that a small default amount of noise reduction is really helping.

Of course, the underlying cardinal rule of lightroom still applies: move the sliders until you are happy with the result. :cool2:
 
I like to have a certain amount of NR based on ISO applied at import. At one time I set my camera ISO stops to 1:1. That meant the stops were 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600 and so on. I had ten master files per camera and set NR amount for each file using the Default Develop Settings. Unfortunately setting it to 1:1 did not allow me to use Auto ISO.

Then I found this. Jeffrey's "Bulk Develop Settings" Lightroom Plugin

This allowed me to set the ISO stops back to factory of 1:3 that includes all the stops in between and now I can use Auto ISO. You set you preferred ISO values from 0 the the highest one you want and the plug-in applies NR logarithmically for ISO value. It will do this for hundreds if files in seconds.
 
No, this goes back years. Whereas in ACR’s early days, you needed different slider values for every ISO, these days it’s smarter. 25 on 6400 ISO automatically applies more noise reduction than on 100 ISO without you needing to do a thing.
This allowed me to set the ISO stops back to factory of 1:3 that includes all the stops in between and now I can use Auto ISO. You set you preferred ISO values from 0 the the highest one you want and the plug-in applies NR logarithmically for ISO value. It will do this for hundreds if files in seconds.

Victorias comment implies that Adobe changed the algorithm to be ISO sensitive. Does this post-date the process you describe of applying more for higher ISO?

My work tends to fall into either night/indoor sports, or daylight sports, so end up in groups of either extreme - high ISO, or low ISO. Yet at present I just use the same default value unless I notice (as in a tight crop, or faces in shadow) more noise than usual.

Seemingly irrelevant comment: I liked texture when it came out a lot.

Now though after looking at this discussion and several daylight shots, I am wondering if why I liked texture so much is that it put back some of the over-smoothing that my default noise reduction was removing. Here is an example zoomed 2:1. I've always liked 2:1 for viewing sharpness and noise settings because it's easier to see, and you go just a bit too far to "visibly crunchy" and then it tends to look right at 1:1. This is at base ISO (100) and on the left is 20 NR and the right I changed it to zero.

zero_v_twenty.jpg

I think the NR was excessive on the left. It looks good at 2:1 -- but that means it is too smooth at 1:1 or smaller. Interestingly adding about +10 texture puts back most of the crunchiness (technical term ;) ) that NR took away. Though I like the impact on the background smoothing, and now wish NR had a mask (or inverse mask) like sharpening.

Here's the same shot with zero NR and zero texture on the left, and 20 NR and 10 Texture on the right. They are not quite identical but you can see in comparison to the left shot above how both have a bit of crunchiness that at 1:1 becomes sharper or more crisp edges. Makes me wonder if texture "fixed" a problem I was creating myself, at least near base ISO. Though if I look quite closely I like the right one better, the sharpness is a bit stronger on the face detail and lighter on the background which is what one would want.

This is a Sony A7Riv, ISO 200, 1600th at 200mm and and also viewed 2:1 (given it's a 61mpix camera that means it's a really, really tight crop).

Anyway, I'll quit hijacking the thread, but interesting discussion, thanks.

zero_v_twenty_ten.jpg
 
Thanks for the detailed explanation and the test shots Ferguson. I do realise what Vitoria said. Since Adobe changed this I thought I'd mention the plug-in which might help other uses. I went off topic a bit.
 
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