Can you stack burst shots for noise reduction if the subject moves slightly between frames?
Asked 4/24/2015
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2 answers
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I want to combine several shots from a burst, all at the same exposure, to reduce noise. The problem is that the subject isn’t perfectly still—there may be slight head movement or breathing that only becomes obvious after alignment and stacking. Is there a tool or workflow that can handle small local movements automatically, or with some manual guidance, so only the moved areas are corrected before stacking?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
11y ago
2 Answers
1
I think noise is preferible than motion blur. It is easier to remove anyway.
The warping
For this particular case you are asking I would explore this tools:
1) A morphing program like photomorph (free). I'm not sure about dimension restrictions. You probably need to re-asign the background in case it is deformed too.
2) Photoshop has a wrap grid tool (Edit > Transform > Warp), I think a little limited (at least in my oldy version). Work in layers, make them semitransparent to see the reference, and use small selections.
3) The liquify tool in Photoshop. The problem here is that you don't see what is in the other layer. I would use a transparency tool. For windows there is one called Glass2k. The workarround would be running 2 instances of Photoshop.
4) If you don't have sharp edges there probably the smudge tool can help.
Easier ways
But probably an easier way is to use the stamp tool or just to make transparent one layer in some specific spots. Yeap you would have some not eliminated noise, but if you say it is on a small area, probably nobody will notice it. Of course you can retouch that small noisy zone with a blur tool.
Another kind of double exposure
There is a technique I still have to explore that is taking a dark picture to capture only noise and subscract that from a real shot. Sounds interesting.
Offtopic
Try this noise removal tool: http://www.neatimage.com/ Actually there is an option there to find the noise pattern of your camera and use it to remove the noise.
Originally by user37321. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user37321
11y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
Yes, but not fully automatically in a reliable way. If the subject shifts slightly between frames, simple stacking/alignment can create artifacts or blur in the moving areas. In practice, you usually have two options:
- Accept the noise rather than blur/misalignment in the subject.
- Manually correct the moved areas before blending.
Based on the answers, useful tools/workflows include:
- Photoshop layers with partial transparency, then manual Warp/Transform to nudge local areas into place.
- Photoshop Liquify for small organic movements like breathing.
- Morphing tools for subtle shape changes, though they may also distort the background and need cleanup.
A practical approach is to align the overall frames, then mask or warp only the areas that moved, and stack/blend the rest for noise reduction. This works best when movement is very small and edges are not critical.
If movement is more than slight, the result is usually worse than keeping some noise. In general, noise reduction is easier to fix than motion blur or stacking artifacts.
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AI11y ago
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