# Extra-ordinary behaviour (!!?) with 32-bit TIFF files



## Tony Jay (Oct 27, 2012)

The following description almost defies words:
I have used 32-bit TIFF files only fleetingly for HDR purposes during the course of this year.
I have never had to use noise reduction before on a 32-bit TIFF.
Today I did.
The results defy description - the ENTIRE image smears and the colours disintegrate into wierd garishness.
Imagine viewing a cityscape at night through a misted up window - this sort of approaches it.

Moving either the luminence or colour noise reduction sliders will do it although not to the same extent.
I can only think that this is an unrecognized bug.
I have not done a search on the net for this because I keep my ear to the ground and have done some recent research into 32-bit TIFF files for the very purpose outlined above.
At his stage I have not contacted Adobe directly.

For clarification I shoot with 5DII or 5DIII, Lightroom 4.2 on a Windows7 workstation.
Photoshop CS5 for Merge-to-HDR (It seems to behave very appropriately).
Other sliders seem to work appropriately at this stage.

Any light that can be shed on this would be appreciated.

Tony Jay


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## Victoria Bampton (Oct 27, 2012)

That's a weird one.  Can I see Tony?


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## Tony Jay (Oct 27, 2012)

Yes I will post before and after if you like. Actually after then before in this case!


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## Victoria Bampton (Oct 27, 2012)

Wow, that is quite a difference!  What were your NR settings?


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## Tony Jay (Oct 27, 2012)

Victoria, I dialed it up quite high so you could see what I mean't.
But even with just a very "subtle" NR adjustment the result is like nothing I have ever seen.

Tony Jay


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## Victoria Bampton (Oct 27, 2012)

You could post it on the bug report forum, although I would assume it's because the file is missing camera metadata which would otherwise help it know the settings to use.


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## Tony Jay (Oct 27, 2012)

It is possible but Lightroom did know what lens profile to use when I enabled it.

Tony Jay


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## Tony Jay (Nov 1, 2012)

Victoria I have an answer of sorts.

After posting this issue to Photoshop.com Eric Chan has replied that my experience is apparently "normal" for a 32-bit TIFF file.
The problem is that even applying the most subtle of noise reduction, literally 1 of either luminance or colour noise reduction, will result in a horribly haloed completely unusable image.

In the context of why I am generating 32-bit TIFFs in the first place - to allow me to tone-map HDR images, generated in Photoshop, in Lightroom it is completely nonsensical to apply noise reduction to component files prior to 'Merge to HDR in Photoshop'.
It is true, in my experience at least, that noise reduction has not been a prominent requirement in my HDR images to date.
That may not always be the case in the future though.

My experience now with 32-bit TIFF files suggests that editing them in Lightroom is still a work-in-progress rather than a done-deal.
There are certain issues with colour as well but there is no doubt that noise reduction is completely unusable when applied to 32-bit TIFF files.

Perhaps Eric Chan and his collegues are considering this already but my suggestion is that Lightroom should be enabled such that the noise reduction editing be automatically scalable according to bit-depth so that the behaviour of the sliders matches the experience with native RAW file editing.

Tony Jay


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## Victoria Bampton (Nov 2, 2012)

It might be worth posting a 1:1 view with a much lower 'normal' range of noise reduction just to double check that's still what's expected.  The very high values may be causing people to make assumptions.  I'd also export it to JPEG and then try the same settings on a JPEG version just as a double check of their comments.


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## Tony Jay (Nov 2, 2012)

I am not at home right now so cannot post an image as per your suggestion.
I did find that ANY degree of noise reduction - even to 1 immediately blurred the image to unusability.
In the next 24 hours or so, once I am home, I will post  a 1:1 view demonstrating this.

Tony Jay


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## Victoria Bampton (Nov 2, 2012)

Perfect, I think the example at a low value will make your point much better.


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## LouieSherwin (Nov 2, 2012)

Tony Jay said:


> In the context of why I am generating 32-bit TIFFs in the first place - to allow me to tone-map HDR images, generated in Photoshop, in Lightroom it is completely nonsensical to apply noise reduction to component files prior to 'Merge to HDR in Photoshop'.
> It is true, in my experience at least, that noise reduction has not been a prominent requirement in my HDR images to date.
> That may not always be the case in the future though.



Tony,

I am curious why you think that it is not a good idea to apply NR prior to Merge to HDR. For me it seems to be one of the few things you do want to do before  merging especially when dealing with high ISO images. I have found that noise often gets amplified in the HDR merge process and usually is not what I want and to deal with it on the input is easier. 

BTW I use Nik HDR Efex Pro 2 instead of Photoshop.

-louie


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## Tony Jay (Nov 2, 2012)

Fair question Louie.
My experience using Merge to HDR in Photoshop is that, in general, noise is not amplified in the process. My HDR panoramas are studies of great detail where as far as is possible I avoid doing anything that might reduce detail.

With regard to my current problems I already have a magnificent master of a large multishot HDR panorama done before the advent of Lr4.1.
With the ability to tone map in Lr using 32-bit TIFF files I tried to remaster this panorama from scratch using the original RAW files.
I have another 32-bit TIFF HDR composition shot in daylight where no noise reduction was required, however, in this case, the images were shot at dusk and I could see a small amount of noise in the sky when viewing the 32-bit TIFF.
I discovered to my surprise that any amount of noise reduction on this 32-bit TIFF immediately caused frightful blurring and a completely unusable image.
There just does not seem to be a usable level of noise reduction when applied to 32-bit TIFF files as currently engineered in Lr4.2.

Tony Jay


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