Reduce digital noise

You use the Noise Reduction adjustment controls when you need to reduce digital noise in an image. Digital noise is often caused by shooting at high ISO settings in low-light conditions. When you reduce noise in an image, you often have to sharpen the image to prevent blurry edges or loss of detail. For more information, see Sharpen an image.

Figure. Image before and after a Noise Reduction adjustment.

Note: For RAW images, you can also use the De-noise option in combination with the Edges adjustment in the Raw Fine Tuning adjustment block to reduce noise. For more information, see RAW Fine Tuning controls overview.

Reduce digital noise in an image

Select a photo.
If the Noise Reduction controls aren’t shown in the Adjustments inspector or the Adjustments pane of the Inspector HUD, choose Noise Reduction from the Add Adjustment pop-up menu (or press Control-N), and specify the following settings:
- To reduce digital noise in the image: Use the Radius parameter controls.
  A value of 0.0 applies no digital noise adjustment to the image. A value greater than 0.0 reduces digital noise in the image.
- To maintain edge detail in areas of high contrast in the image: Use the Edge Detail parameter controls.
  As you change the parameter value, the image is updated to display the amount of edge detail sharpening applied to it.

You can also brush the Noise Reduction adjustment on specific areas of an image. For more information, see Apply brushed adjustments.