[Tutorial] How to Do Noise Reduction in Lightroom

Last Updated on September 25, 2022 by Peter Wood


It is inevitable to capture noise with a digital camera, whether you shoot in low light, use high ISO, underwater, in sport, or in action. Among the noise removal tools to remove noise and recover image detail, Lightroom should be one of the primers for reducing noise in photos.

To reduce noise in different versions of Lightroom, you can find the detailed process or even the alternative program. What is more, the article also provides some tips for noise reduction in Lightroom. Just learn more detail about noise reduction in Lightroom and the best alternative from the article.

Noise Reduction in Lightroom

Part 1: How Lightroom works for Noise Reduction

Before you can tackle the issue of noise, you should know how Lightroom works for noise reduction. Usually, Lightroom should recognize types of noise before the noise removal process. And then Lightroom smooths the image pixel to enhance the photo. Just take Lightroom to eliminate the amount of noise for a photograph caused by high ISO settings.

Identify Noise. When you reduce image noise with Lightroom, you can find both luminance and color. Luminance noise is noise where only the brightness of colored pixels is affected while color noise known as Chrome takes on the form of magenta and green splotches in the image.

Color Luminance Noise

Noise Reduction. Once the load noise photo into Lightroom, Lightroom automatically removes some noise with advanced noise reduction technology. It enables you to adjust multiple parameters for luminance and color, including detail, contrast, and smoothness.

Lightroom Noise Removal

Part 2: How to do Noise Reduction in Lightroom CC

You can either use Lightroom CC or the other plug-in programs of Lightroom to reduce the noise of photos. When you need to use the Standalone version of Lightroom, you can launch the program first.

Step 1: Load noise photo to Lightroom

When you load the noise photo to Lightroom, you can click the file and zoom in to check the noise in detail. And you can select the Develop option in the upper right corner. You can find different adjustments displayed with various functions.

Import Noise Image Lightroom

Step 2: Select adjust for noise reduction

Scroll down to find the section labeled with Detail. And you can find the adjustments for Sharpness, Noise Reduction in Lightroom. Both Luminance noise and Color noise are available to remove the noise of your digital photo.

Detail of Lightroom

Step 3: Reduce color noises with Lightroom

By default, Lightroom sets the color noise to a slider position of 25. You can move the slider to 0 to check the original noise photo. After that, adjust the Color, Detail, and Smoothness to reduce the color noise with Lightroom.

Adjust Parameters for Lightroom

Step 4: Remove luminance noise with Lightroom

Luminance noise should be a little difficult to tackle. Tweak the Luminance, Detail, and Contrast to turn photos with noise into better ones. To get the optimal photo effect, you need to have a balance between noise and sharpness.

Tweak Other Parameters

Moreover, you can also remove the image noises from the selected area of an image using the following tools of Lightroom: the Adjustment Brush, the Radial Filter, or the Graduated filter. You can choose a specific part to apply noise reduction with Lightroom.

The other areas will remain unchanged. Just adjust the slider to adjust the degree of luminance noise reduction with the best effect. Once you reduce the noise of a photo in Lightroom, it will reduce the sharpness because of the smooth process. And you can also adjust the noise photos sharpness with Lightroom or use the Masking slider of Lightroom to get the desired result.

Part 3: Best Alternative for Lightroom Noise Reduction

Is there an easy Lightroom alternative to reduce image noise and enhance the photo quality? Whether you cannot find the optimal effect with Lightroom or need to use an easy method to process the RAW files, WidsMob Retoucher is the all-in-one AI denoiser to remove image noise. It not only provides 3 different AI Retouch options to reduce noise, recover lowlight, and remove haze. It has the same parameters to adjust the sharpness, chrominance, and luminance. Moreover, you can combine the different image noise reduction methods to optimize the photos.

1. Reduce the noise with 3 different AI Retouch methods as well as manual noise reduction options.

2. Fix film grain, JPEG compression artifacts, and other imperfections for JPEG files and RAW formats.

3. Provide sharpness, chrominance (color) noise, luminance noise, and other settings for manual adjustments.

4. Deliver exceptional detail and outstanding image quality with a distinctive natural look in a batch process.

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How to reduce noise with WidsMob Retoucher

Step 1: Add noise image for reduction

To fix pixelated images from a smartphone or a digital camera, you should import all the photos to WidsMob Retoucher beforehand. Launch the program and click the Open button from the File menu to select the photos.

Import Noisy Image Retoucher

Step 2: Adjust and reduce image noises

Similar to the color noise of Lightroom, WidsMob Retoucher provides a chrominance option. Go to the Adjust menu and scroll down to adjust the sliders for Luminance, Chrominance, and Sharpness to have the optimal effect.

Tweak Parameters as Lightroom Retoucher

Step 3: Apply AI retouch with one click

When you need to apply the effect easily, you can click the AI Retouch menu and select the Noise Reduction option. It will enhance the image quality and remove noise automatically. Moreover, you can have a combination.

AI Noise Reduction Retoucher

Step 4: Save images for noise reduction

Enable the Before/After mode and preview the image for noise reduction. When you can the optimal effect, you can click the Save as button in the upper left corner to save it to your computer or share it on social media sites.

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Conclusion

When you shoot photos at a high ISO or using a long exposure time, it should be inevitable to capture noise. And you can use other Lightroom plugins to reduce the noise. If you are a professional photographer, noise should be something that you want to do away with in your workflow. You should also try Neat Image and WidsMob Retoucher with AI technologies to eliminate the noises.