New ballet

[sambam]

My Dad and I tried something new on a different program. Does this look better or the same?!?

[sambam]

On Elements, how do you get rid of the spotyness?

[Manfred M]

That worked a lot better; good image quality.

The "spotiness" you are referring to is sensor noise brought about by shooting at a high ISO value (the metadata shows you shooting at 70mm at f/2.8 at 1/400 sec at ISO 1600). This is an unfortunately issue with many cameras when you are shooting under existing light conditions. You might try dropping to ISO 800 and shooting at 1/200th to see how the noise looks. In photography, we are always trying to manage various tradeoffs. The sensor noise performance has really improved in more recent camera models, but that doesn't help you at all. The only other thing you can try to do is shoot under brighter lights, but that brings other challanges.


Unfortunately, I don't use Elements, so can't help you there. If there is a noise reduction filter, that is something that both Lightroom 4 and Photoshop CS6 have, so I'd suggest you look for it and play around with it on a COPY of the file to see how that works. There are a number of Elements users on CiC, hopefully they can help you.

[smcrews]

Nice shot Sam. I would have to agree with Manfred. Lowering the ISO would help with the noise, but you have to make sure that you nail the exposure. Underexposing due to a low ISO can be just as damaging as a high ISO. Noise reduction will work, however you tend to loose some of the details.

I hope you don't mind. I went ahead and pulled out some of the noise for you.

[revi]

Also, don't use negative exposure compensation unless you need it... Under exposure really makes the noise visible
(even more than using a higher ISO with proper exposure, or we wouldn't need higher ISO settings...).

This pose seems relatively static, so you could try bracketing the exposure next time. With bracketing, you have the
camera take three shots, one at measured exposure, one at higher and one at lower exposure. The difference in
exposure can usually be selected between 0.3 to 0.7-2 EV (the highest value depends on the camera, my Sony A330
is limited to a maximum of +/-0.7 EV).

And as a last resort, there's a number of ways to reduce the noise (but they all soften the image to some extend).

[sambam]

Ok. Thanks. But it does look better then the other pics I've posted?

[Andrew76]

But it does look better then the other pics I've posted?

Yes, much. It appears as though your re-sizing problems have been solved. Yaaay Dad! Now you're just dealing with noise, which is an in-camera problem you need to solve.

[Andrew76]

Aha! I've looked at the EXIF Data myself after reading through Manfred's post, to see if I could find anything else that might help. And, I have!!

Take that fancy DSLR you have out of Auto mode! You won't be able to use any of the advices been given above if you're just allowing the camera to make all the decisions for you! You could use a point and shoot camera for that.

Seriously though, I think getting that mode selection dial out of the little green rectangle will boost your confidence, and your results more than you can imagine. Doesn't even have to be full manual to start. Why don't you try AV for these static photos of ballerinas, and play around a little with aperture, and ISO?

A few thoughts.

[sambam]

I think it was on AV for this but I will take it out of auto. Thank you. But it does look better than the others?

[Dave Humphries]

I think it was on AV for this but I will take it out of auto. Thank you. But it does look better than the others?

You are correct Sam, it was Av mode.

Yes, yes, it is better

Regarding the noise, if you change your work flow so you don't sharpen at all before you down size...
So process as you have here (except sharpening)
Downsize to 1000px tall if, as here, portrait orientation (or it won't fit people's monitors)
Then sharpen with UnSharp Mask (USM) using the following settings; 100% 0.3px threshold between 0 and 2.

This works better because the downsize will 'average out' a lot of the fine detail noise which the sharpening won't be able to 'latch on to' and make worse.

If the noise at 1600iso on a Canon 40D is that bad, you could try raising the threshold figure still higher, although it'll not look as nice.
Another option is to use something called Neat Image.
This should be done before downsizing, in fact follow the guidance in that link. It works as a filter option from within Elements, it is 'pay for' software, but I think there's a trial period available. It is only about $30 from memory and well worth it - it seriously out performs the built-in noise reduction filtering in Elements.

Good luck with the next try,

[Andrew76]

You are correct Sam, it was Av mode.

My apologies, I stand corrected - in my haste, I misread the EXIF.

Thanks for calling me on that Dave.