Have you ever noticed that some people’s pictures appear almost shiny?  The colors, focus and sharpening work together to make a simple, smooth and clean finish.  Of course, this is mostly due to great photography, but Photoshop Elements can help also!

Defogging and Noise Reduction are two methods that scrub a photo and give it a polished surface on which to apply other improvements.  Try both, and decide whether either, neither or both help your picture.

Defog in Photoshop Elements

Defogging removes haze that sometimes appears in pictures.  I try it on all my shots, regardless of whether a visible haze is present.

• In Photoshop Elements, flatten your image.
• Duplicate the background layer.
• Go to the Enhance Menu and select Unsharp Mask.
• Try any of the following amounts:
  • Amount 20, Radius, 60, Threshold 1
  • Amount 30, Radius 60, Threshold 0,
  • Amount 20, Radius 25, Threshold 0,
  • Or anything else that works for you.
• Adjust the layer’s opacity if needed.
• If you like the effect, flatten image and proceed.
• Try changing the layer’s Blending Mode to Luminosity if you find halos around elements of your image.
• If Defogging doesn’t help this particular shot, delete the layer and forge ahead.

Noise Reduction in Digital Photographs

Noise often appears in photos shot in low light.  These images might appear grainy or have a non-uniform color appearance where you would expect the color to be uniform.  This noise might also arise from “artifacts” created from saving an image as a JPEG too many times.

Photoshop Elements does have noise reducing filters, but they are not great.  I use a free product called Noiseware to reduce noise in my pictures.  There are several versions of Noiseware – the free version is a standalone, meaning that you use it outside of Photoshop Elements.

There are a couple of caveats about using Noiseware this way.  First of all, it’s a pain to leave Elements, open the photo in Noiseware, run the filter, save it and then re-open it in Elements.  And, creating a noise-less image in Noiseware produces a new JPEG with no EXIF data.  So if you need to examine your EXIF data for any reason, you will need to preserve your original file.  However, it is free, so I can’t really complain.  And I haven’t felt it necessary yet to purchase the full product.

Here is a shot that was greatly improved by defogging and noise reduction:

Before – Levels Adjustment Only

After – Defog and Noise Reduction Applied

This scrubbing process made the girls’ skin look less blotchy and smoother, plus it makes their hair just a tiny bit sharper.  You get a big bang for your buck with these improvements!

Need help with either the defog process in Photoshop Elements or noise reduction for your digital photography?  Post a comment – I’d love to help!

Erin