Video: Using Photoshop’s Median Stacking Feature for Noise Reduction

We’ve seen Photoshop’s median stacking process used before to remove tourists from photographs. Now, photographer Andy Astbury takes the time to show us how the same technique can be used to reduce noise in high ISO images. The process involves snapping a couple of the same photos and is best suited for still lifes.

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Astbury begins by importing six photographs of the same scene into Photoshop and ensuring that they are correctly aligned. Once the images have been primed, he then converts the layers into a single Smart layer and uses the median stack mode to ‘average out’ extra noise within the photograph.

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The results are quite impressive, so this is one trick that you may want to keep up your sleeve.

(via Andy Astbury via ISO 1200)


P.S. We published a deeper and more technical look at this technique back in 2013.

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