How should I reduce visible grain/noise in scanned 35mm negatives?
Asked 11/1/2018
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Scanned 35mm negatives often look noisier on screen than they might appear in a traditional darkroom print. If I’m editing scans in Lightroom, is there a reasonable noise-reduction approach to make the image look closer to a darkroom print? I’m mainly wondering whether Lightroom’s noise reduction is appropriate for film grain, or if there’s a better way to handle it.
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
7y ago
2 Answers
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The best settings in Lightroom will depend both on your scanner and on the exact type of film you are processing. I am not very well familiar with Lightroom, but I believe that there are no auto-profiling function in the noise reduction filter. You will have to try out different settings and find out which works better with the specific film. I am not even sure how it works with actual film grain. The intended purpose of the noise reduction filter in Lightroom is to remove digital noise in images from a digital camera, which has quite different characteristics from film grain.
I would assume that you will get much better results with a software or plugin specifically targetting film grain. I have been using 'Neat Image' for more than 15 years now and am very satisfied with the results. It was originally implemented to remove film grain from scanned images, has for a long time in newer versions also supported digital noise, but the newer versions work just as well to remove film grain. You can download a free demo version to thorougly test the results. The only significant restriction of the demo version is that you can only save JPEG files with a fixed quality setting.
Originally by user10009. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user10009
7y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
There isn’t a single Lightroom noise-reduction setting that will make scanned film reliably match a darkroom print. The right amount depends on the scanner, the film stock, and the scan itself.
Also, Lightroom’s noise reduction is mainly designed for digital sensor noise, which behaves differently from film grain. Film grain is part of the image structure, so aggressive NR can make scans look unnatural or smeared.
A practical approach is:
- Start with very light noise reduction in Lightroom.
- Adjust by eye for each film/scanner combination.
- Avoid trying to eliminate all grain if you want a film-like result.
If your goal is specifically to tame film grain while preserving detail, dedicated grain/noise software may work better than Lightroom alone. One community recommendation was Neat Image, which is designed for this kind of cleanup.
In short: use minimal NR in Lightroom, test on your own scans, and consider specialized software if grain reduction is a priority.
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