Lightroom Changed my photos to Grainy/noisy

[Roxking]

Im new to Photography. I was "told" to start with light room before tackling PS. I've been using light room for several months now with now problems. I noticed about a month ago when I went in to edit my photos that they looked rather grainy/noisy. I thought perhaps it was a bad photo I took, maybe just out of focus. I checked a couple other photos from a different shoot that I had already edited. I remember feeling rather pleased with myself after looking through the gallery. When editing those photos they were very clear and sharp! Not now! they look grainy. I've been on multiple forums trying to figure out what happened. Did I mess up a setting? Did i hit a wrong buttom? Ive had many responses to the problems. The most response was to un click the Use of Graphics Processor in LR preferences. The overall opinion I got was that i was zooming in 2:1 instead of 1:1 and that their will always be noise. I was told just not to do that.  However I REALLY fell strongly that something changed in my photos. Any help or advice?! 

[Christina Keddie]

Were you checking for noise (on your old photos, prior to noticing this issue) at 100%?

What about when you open one of these files in another program?  I see you don't have any version of PS or PSE (I'm a huge fan of LR, but I strongly encourage you to at least get PSE -- LR is only for raw processing and workflow management), but what if you export a file as a JPG and then open it in Preview and check it at 100%?  Still noisy there?

[Roxking]

Yes still noisy if i export and check at 100%. I wasn't "exactly" checking for noise. I would zoom in and then i would correct the eyes and enhance. I would notice that they looked very crips. I actually just downloaded the 30 day trial for PS Elements. I have no experience with PS.

 

[Christina Keddie]

You've got to remove noise from all your photos, always. So here's a tutorial on how to do that: http://www.damiensymonds.net/2010/07/raw-noise-removal.html

If you aren't sure that you were viewing your photos earlier at 100%, you cannot confirm that this is a new problem. 

Honestly, it sounds to me that you're just now discovering that you need to do noise removal in your raw processing.  But just to try to troubleshoot any potential software or hardware problem, please fill this out for us and post it here: http://www.damiensymonds.net/thread1.html

[Roxking]

I have a Mac laptop running os x el capitan and Lightroom 6. It is over 2 years old, and has 4GB of RAM. Its hard drive has 366.4GB free out of 4GB. The last time I shut down was more than 2 days ago. I have never run a cleanup program.

[Roxking]

Thanks for the Tutorial. I was definitely removing noise a different way. I experiment with a few photos and Damiens technique worked very nice! 

 

[Christina Keddie]

OK, so -- restart your computer first.   And then check your hard drive stats again -- looks like you gave us your RAM instead of your hard drive specs (you can't have 366.4GB free out of 4GB).

As a general rule: shut down your computer every night, or at least every other night.  And keep at least 1/3rd of your hard drive clear at all times.  And run a good cleanup program on a regular basis.

But it sounds like this was mostly, if not entirely, about you learning how to remove noise?

[Roxking]

thank you! and yes I'm learning pretty much everything! and very eager I might add  I'm excited to start one of the classes next! do you have a cleaning program recommend?

 

[Christina Keddie]

CleanMyMac is the one we recommend around here.   And the classes are such a wonderful way to learn your way around post-processing!!

[Roxking]

Quote

I have a Mac desktop running os x l Capitan and Lightroom 6. It is over 2 years old, and has 4GB of RAM. Its hard drive has 370.18GB free out of 498.88GB. The last time I shut down was just before posting this thread. I have never run a cleanup program.