Understanding Noise

Have you ever noticed countless tiny colored dots in your photographs? If you have, it’s probably because you have (consciously or not) forced your camera into becoming more sensitive to light. That feature or decision is managed via the ISO settings, because aperture is responsible for the amount of light hitting the sensor, and shutter speed determines how long light actually hits the sensor. ISO is the main reason for noise in our photographs, and today we’ll talk about how to reduce it. There are ways to achieve this in-camera and in post-processing. But first, let’s define the difference between noise and grain…