Image Averaging Technique

hello

 

today i want to discuss the image averaging technique

 

i havent seen it discussed much so i will present here to anyone that has a poor camera and lighting like me ^^

 

unfortunately after spending so much on doll parts, i do not have enough money for good lighting or a good camera

 

i use my moms old digital camera which has high noise on lowest ISO setting (i do not have lights strong enough to get a better signal to noise ratio)

 

here is an example of the image averaging technique i read about (unfortunately my doll does not have her head yet )

full size is necessary to see the difference: http://i.imgur.com/1BFUo.jpg

 

 

basically, you take multiple shots of the doll, and then average the images together. this results in significant noise reduction as you can see on the right

 

apparently, averaging two images is equivelant to halving the ISO (so 2x ISO 200 = 1x ISO 100)

 

 

i hope this technique proves useful to you

 

 

also note that this technique can let you use two lights with only one. in my example i changed the position of the light for the last 3 images, which basically meant it was like i had two lights shining on the subject... when i had only one!

 

pretty tricky isn't it!

This sounds a lot like HDR (High Dynamic Range). It's a technique where you take multiple exposures of the same scene and use software in post processing to "merge" them together. This allows you to get details out of the lighter areas and darker areas in the same final image.

 

The latest version of Photoshop offers HDR processing built in and there are ways to get Photoshop Elements to behave the same way. It is important to shoot with a tripod though to get the best effect.

Yes, it's somewhat similar to HDR but imo not that much.

In HDR You usually take multiple exposures with different settings, to have properly exposed different parts of picture when the dynamic range is too high. Then You merge different regions from different exposures.

For example - the whole room from one picture and just the outside of window from another.

 

Averaging means You merge the whole picture - I mean set of several almost identical ones, taken with the same exposure settings - and this really lowers the noise.

It's a technique widely used in astrophotography, too.

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/image-averaging-noise.htm

Edited March 30, 2012 by Guest

But which programm do you use to put all these images together T_T ... because i am one of the user who havent photoshop OTL

Paint.NET is free and has layers, among many other editing tools. And it has many optional processing plugins.

I just tried and it works, the only difference is that it uses not percentage but 0-255 scale.

Following the principles from the linked article, for example 50% opacity should be set as 127, 33% as 85 and so on

 

Or You can use RegiStax - software for alignment/stacking/processing of images, used for astro photography. Probably DeepSkyStacker - Free will work, too. Or StarStaX, or maybe Startrails ...

 

Honestly, the world is full of free software. You just have to do a little search...

There's no need to have Photoshop for every basic graphical thing one may need.

Thank you Kumi for explaining it more fully ^^

 

The free software you linked for astro photography is very interesting

 

This program also seems interesting: http://www.tawbaware.com/imgstack.htm

This program also seems interesting: http://www.tawbaware.com/imgstack.htm

Yes, but it's not free, and without registration is limited to relatively small pictures.

 

While Image Stacker will operate without registration, it is limited to processing 10 images with sizes no larger than 640x480 pixels

This program also seems interesting: http://www.tawbaware.com/imgstack.htm

Yes, but it's not free, and without registration is limited to relatively small pictures.

 

While Image Stacker will operate without registration, it is limited to processing 10 images with sizes no larger than 640x480 pixels

 

oh... too bad