Image output from RAW is grainy?

[debsiew]

Hi. I hope I'm posting this at the right thread, else please advise if this isn't the right section for this.

I've recently received a 5DM3 as a graduation gift and got myself a 50mm lens to shoot along with. I didn't study or learn photography and most of what I know I learned it off the internet, so I'm still rather new to this.

I'm not sure whether my original settings were wrong or that my sensor isn't clean. The images I've shot looked decent in RAW, grain isn't that bad, however once I start tweaking with the settings in Camera Raw(photoshop), the grain becomes rather obvious and it gets worst even with slight brightness/colour changes with photoshop.

The below image was shot with the following settings: Manual, f1.4, 1/250s, ISO 200, 50mm.

JPEG output from RAW no changes

JPEG output from RAW with some setting adjustments (done in Camera RAW in photoshop)

JPEG with slight colour adjustments and clearning on photoshop CC

When the image is zoomed in 100% (full image size at 5760x3840px), the grain is really bad, especially around the hair and face. You can already see it from the second image attached. I'm not very confident to send this image to my friend as the quality isn't as smooth and clean as I've seen from other people.

So what I'm trying to figure out now is this:

1. Was my camera settings wrong?

2. Was the ambient light at the location throwing off the exposure which resulted to the grain? (shot around 3pm in the afternoon, lots of back light in the background)

3. Did I overdo the image adjustments in Camera RAW and then further affected it in photoshop?

4. Is the format of the image wrong? Should this be exported as TIFF instead of JPEG?

5. Is the size wrong? Like should I reduce it to a smaller dimension? When this was reduced to 1500x1000px the grain wasn't so bad even with all the edits.

I hope you guys can help me out and advice where I've mucked up. This is doing my head in as I thought I had the settings and everything sorted during the shoot.

Also if this isn't the right thread please let me know! First time posting and all.

[debsiew]

WOW! This is really neat.

1. That graph from DXO is so important!! I wished I knew about it earlier. Reckon I didn't do enough research  Even though the research was done a few years back, I'm sure it still applies even now.

2. That makes sense. I'm going to give it a go with some new shots and I'll see whether I've worked this out.

Thank you again so much Peter for all this awesome insight! I really love the depth of information you've shared here (geeky but important in the long run!). Expecially the preview on those new programs (though I'm going to take some time to properly read up what each program does/is good for before trying it out).

Really appreciate all the help guys and the amazing information! I'm going to practice more and figure it out along the way. Thanks again! You are all legends 

[coachboz68]

Fantastic feedback as always.  You will never want for in-depth technical explanations in this forum.  The collective knowledge and experience is amazing.  

Given you said you were new, I would suggest a parallel track to all the detailed technical learning, which is a lot of testing and trial-and-error.  Real-world experience will help you decide which looks are most important to you, and as a result, which settings become your "go-to" for various kinds of shots.  As an example, if you know you are going to shoot portraits in that kind of back-lit setting, grab a friend and go shoot 100 shots using all kinds of different manual and auto settings.  Maybe do a set locking ISO, then another set locking TV, then a set locking both at various relationships to each other, etc., etc.  

The details of how you methodically go through your testing isn't important, but you may find that augmenting your technical learning with this kind of real-world output could be equally beneficial.  

One last thing I will say that seems to be consistent with newer photographers: I suspect that you are going to care about noise (grain) and sharpness of the image about 100x more than your clients.  I've been personally guilty of this many, many times.  Newer photographers tend to obsess over those two things and sometimes the clients care so much more about the composition of the shot and what not.  It's a lower bar than you think in most cases -- at least that's been my experience.  

In summary, learning the deep technical aspects is awesome (it's half the fun for me!) but don't forget about just getting out there to practice, practice, practice before it's time for the meaningful shoot.  That has helped me a lot to find my style and settings with which I am comfortable.  

Oh, and just one throw-away comment that someone else said, I find the noise reduction in Lightroom to be very, very effective.  Especially in portraits where people want a slightly softer look anyway.  

HTH.