sensor noise
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Image noise is random variation of brightness or color information in
image An image is a visual representation of something. It can be two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or somehow otherwise feed into the visual system to convey information. An image can be an artifact, such as a photograph or other two-dimensio ...
s, and is usually an aspect of electronic noise. It can be produced by the
image sensor An image sensor or imager is a sensor that detects and conveys information used to make an image. It does so by converting the variable attenuation of light waves (as they pass through or reflect off objects) into signals, small bursts of c ...
and circuitry of a scanner or
digital camera A digital camera is a camera that captures photographs in digital memory. Most cameras produced today are digital, largely replacing those that capture images on photographic film. Digital cameras are now widely incorporated into mobile devices ...
. Image noise can also originate in
film grain Film grain or granularity is the random optical texture of processed photographic film due to the presence of small particles of a metallic silver, or dye clouds, developed from silver halide that have received enough photons. While film grain i ...
and in the unavoidable
shot noise Shot noise or Poisson noise is a type of noise which can be modeled by a Poisson process. In electronics shot noise originates from the discrete nature of electric charge. Shot noise also occurs in photon counting in optical devices, where sh ...
of an ideal photon detector. Image noise is an undesirable by-product of image capture that obscures the desired information. Typically the term “image noise” is used to refer to noise in 2D images, not 3D images. The original meaning of "noise" was "unwanted signal"; unwanted electrical fluctuations in signals received by AM radios caused audible acoustic noise ("static"). By analogy, unwanted electrical fluctuations are also called "noise". Image noise can range from almost imperceptible specks on a digital photograph taken in good light, to
optical Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behaviour of visible, ultravio ...
and radioastronomical images that are almost entirely noise, from which a small amount of information can be derived by sophisticated processing. Such a noise level would be unacceptable in a photograph since it would be impossible even to determine the subject.


Types


Gaussian noise

Principal sources of
Gaussian noise Gaussian noise, named after Carl Friedrich Gauss, is a term from signal processing theory denoting a kind of signal noise that has a probability density function (pdf) equal to that of the normal distribution (which is also known as the Gaussian ...
in
digital image A digital image is an image composed of picture elements, also known as ''pixels'', each with '' finite'', '' discrete quantities'' of numeric representation for its intensity or gray level that is an output from its two-dimensional functions ...
s arise during acquisition. The sensor has inherent noise due to the level of illumination and its own temperature, and the electronic circuits connected to the sensor inject their own share of electronic circuit noise. A typical model of image noise is Gaussian, additive, independent at each
pixel In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a raster image, or the smallest point in an all points addressable display device. In most digital display devices, pixels are the ...
, and independent of the signal intensity, caused primarily by
Johnson–Nyquist noise Johnson–Nyquist noise (thermal noise, Johnson noise, or Nyquist noise) is the electronic noise generated by the thermal agitation of the charge carriers (usually the electrons) inside an electrical conductor at equilibrium, which happens reg ...
(thermal noise), including that which comes from the reset noise of capacitors ("kTC noise"). Amplifier noise is a major part of the "read noise" of an image sensor, that is, of the constant noise level in dark areas of the image. In color cameras where more amplification is used in the blue color channel than in the green or red channel, there can be more noise in the blue channel. At higher exposures, however, image sensor noise is dominated by shot noise, which is not Gaussian and not independent of signal intensity. Also, there are many Gaussian denoising algorithms.


Salt-and-pepper noise

Fat-tail distributed or "impulsive" noise is sometimes called salt-and-pepper noise or spike noise. An image containing salt-and-pepper noise will have dark pixels in bright regions and bright pixels in dark regions. This type of noise can be caused by
analog-to-digital converter In electronics, an analog-to-digital converter (ADC, A/D, or A-to-D) is a system that converts an analog signal, such as a sound picked up by a microphone or light entering a digital camera, into a digital signal. An ADC may also provide ...
errors, bit errors in transmission, etc. It can be mostly eliminated by using dark frame subtraction,
median filter The median filter is a non-linear digital filtering technique, often used to remove noise from an image or signal. Such noise reduction is a typical pre-processing step to improve the results of later processing (for example, edge detection on an ...
ing, combined
median In statistics and probability theory, the median is the value separating the higher half from the lower half of a data sample, a population, or a probability distribution. For a data set, it may be thought of as "the middle" value. The basic f ...
and
mean There are several kinds of mean in mathematics, especially in statistics. Each mean serves to summarize a given group of data, often to better understand the overall value ( magnitude and sign) of a given data set. For a data set, the '' ar ...
filtering and interpolating around dark/bright pixels. Dead
pixel In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a raster image, or the smallest point in an all points addressable display device. In most digital display devices, pixels are the ...
s in an
LCD monitor A thin-film-transistor liquid-crystal display (TFT LCD) is a variant of a liquid-crystal display that uses thin-film-transistor technology to improve image qualities such as addressability and contrast. A TFT LCD is an active matrix LCD, in cont ...
produce a similar, but non-random, display.


Shot noise

The dominant noise in the brighter parts of an image from an
image sensor An image sensor or imager is a sensor that detects and conveys information used to make an image. It does so by converting the variable attenuation of light waves (as they pass through or reflect off objects) into signals, small bursts of c ...
is typically that caused by statistical quantum fluctuations, that is, variation in the number of photons sensed at a given exposure level. This noise is known as photon
shot noise Shot noise or Poisson noise is a type of noise which can be modeled by a Poisson process. In electronics shot noise originates from the discrete nature of electric charge. Shot noise also occurs in photon counting in optical devices, where sh ...
. Shot noise follows a
Poisson distribution In probability theory and statistics, the Poisson distribution is a discrete probability distribution that expresses the probability of a given number of events occurring in a fixed interval of time or space if these events occur with a known co ...
, which can be approximated by a Gaussian distribution for large image intensity. Shot noise has a
standard deviation In statistics, the standard deviation is a measure of the amount of variation or dispersion of a set of values. A low standard deviation indicates that the values tend to be close to the mean (also called the expected value) of the set, whil ...
proportional to the square root of the image intensity, and the noise at different pixels are independent of one another. In addition to photon shot noise, there can be additional shot noise from the dark leakage current in the image sensor; this noise is sometimes known as "dark shot noise" or "dark-current shot noise". Dark current is greatest at "hot pixels" within the image sensor. The variable dark charge of normal and hot pixels can be subtracted off (using "dark frame subtraction"), leaving only the shot noise, or random component, of the leakage. If dark-frame subtraction is not done, or if the exposure time is long enough that the hot pixel charge exceeds the linear charge capacity, the noise will be more than just shot noise, and hot pixels appear as salt-and-pepper noise.


Quantization noise (uniform noise)

The noise caused by quantizing the pixels of a sensed image to a number of discrete levels is known as quantization noise. It has an approximately
uniform distribution Uniform distribution may refer to: * Continuous uniform distribution * Discrete uniform distribution * Uniform distribution (ecology) * Equidistributed sequence See also * * Homogeneous distribution In mathematics, a homogeneous distribution ...
. Though it can be signal dependent, it will be signal independent if other noise sources are big enough to cause
dithering Dither is an intentionally applied form of noise used to randomize quantization error, preventing large-scale patterns such as color banding in images. Dither is routinely used in processing of both digital audio and video data, and is often ...
, or if dithering is explicitly applied.


Film grain

The
grain A grain is a small, hard, dry fruit ( caryopsis) – with or without an attached hull layer – harvested for human or animal consumption. A grain crop is a grain-producing plant. The two main types of commercial grain crops are cereals and legum ...
of
photographic film Photographic film is a strip or sheet of transparent film base coated on one side with a gelatin emulsion containing microscopically small light-sensitive silver halide crystals. The sizes and other characteristics of the crystals determine ...
is a signal-dependent noise, with similar statistical distribution to
shot noise Shot noise or Poisson noise is a type of noise which can be modeled by a Poisson process. In electronics shot noise originates from the discrete nature of electric charge. Shot noise also occurs in photon counting in optical devices, where sh ...
. If film grains are uniformly distributed (equal number per area), and if each grain has an equal and independent probability of developing to a dark silver grain after absorbing
photon A photon () is an elementary particle that is a quantum of the electromagnetic field, including electromagnetic radiation such as light and radio waves, and the force carrier for the electromagnetic force. Photons are massless, so they alwa ...
s, then the number of such dark grains in an area will be random with a
binomial distribution In probability theory and statistics, the binomial distribution with parameters ''n'' and ''p'' is the discrete probability distribution of the number of successes in a sequence of ''n'' independent experiments, each asking a yes–no ques ...
. In areas where the probability is low, this distribution will be close to the classic
Poisson distribution In probability theory and statistics, the Poisson distribution is a discrete probability distribution that expresses the probability of a given number of events occurring in a fixed interval of time or space if these events occur with a known co ...
of shot noise. A simple
Gaussian distribution In statistics, a normal distribution or Gaussian distribution is a type of continuous probability distribution for a real-valued random variable. The general form of its probability density function is : f(x) = \frac e^ The parameter \mu ...
is often used as an adequately accurate model. Film grain is usually regarded as a nearly
isotropic Isotropy is uniformity in all orientations; it is derived . Precise definitions depend on the subject area. Exceptions, or inequalities, are frequently indicated by the prefix ' or ', hence '' anisotropy''. ''Anisotropy'' is also used to describ ...
(non-oriented) noise source. Its effect is made worse by the distribution of silver halide grains in the film also being random.


Anisotropic noise

Some noise sources show up with a significant orientation in images. For example,
image sensor An image sensor or imager is a sensor that detects and conveys information used to make an image. It does so by converting the variable attenuation of light waves (as they pass through or reflect off objects) into signals, small bursts of c ...
s are sometimes subject to row noise or column noise.


Periodic noise

A common source of periodic noise in an image is from electrical interference during the image capturing process. An image affected by periodic noise will look like a repeating pattern has been added on top of the original image. In the frequency domain this type of noise can be seen as discrete spikes. Significant reduction of this noise can be achieved by applying notch filters in the frequency domain. The following images illustrate an image affected by periodic noise, and the result of reducing the noise using frequency domain filtering. Note that the filtered image still has some noise on the borders. Further filtering could reduce this border noise, however it may also reduce some of the fine details in the image. The trade-off between noise reduction and preserving fine details is application specific. For example, if the fine details on the castle are not considered important, low pass filtering could be an appropriate option. If the fine details of the castle are considered important, a viable solution may be to crop off the border of the image entirely.


In digital cameras

In low light, correct exposure requires the use of slow
shutter speed In photography, shutter speed or exposure time is the length of time that the film or digital sensor inside the camera is exposed to light (that is, when the camera's shutter is open) when taking a photograph. The amount of light that rea ...
(i.e. long exposure time) or an opened aperture (lower
f-number In optics, the f-number of an optical system such as a camera lens is the ratio of the system's focal length to the diameter of the entrance pupil ("clear aperture").Smith, Warren ''Modern Optical Engineering'', 4th Ed., 2007 McGraw-Hill Pro ...
), or both, to increase the amount of light (photons) captured which in turn reduces the impact of shot noise . If the limits of shutter (motion) and aperture (depth of field) have been reached and the resulting image is still not bright enough, then higher
gain Gain or GAIN may refer to: Science and technology * Gain (electronics), an electronics and signal processing term * Antenna gain * Gain (laser), the amplification involved in laser emission * Gain (projection screens) * Information gain in de ...
(
ISO sensitivity Film speed is the measure of a photographic film's sensitivity to light, determined by sensitometry and measured on various numerical scales, the most recent being the ISO system. A closely related ISO system is used to describe the relations ...
) should be used to reduce read noise. On most cameras, slower shutter speeds lead to increased salt-and-pepper noise due to
photodiode A photodiode is a light-sensitive semiconductor diode. It produces current when it absorbs photons. The package of a photodiode allows light (or infrared or ultraviolet radiation, or X-rays) to reach the sensitive part of the device. The packag ...
leakage currents. At the cost of a doubling of read noise variance (41% increase in read noise standard deviation), this salt-and-pepper noise can be mostly eliminated by dark frame subtraction. Banding noise, similar to
shadow noise {{main, Image noise Shadow noise or luminescence noise is an effect that digital lightening has on an image, specifically on the darker, or shadowed areas of the image. Brightening the image, especially in underexposed photos, brings out the "shad ...
, can be introduced through brightening shadows or through color-balance processing.


Read noise

In
digital camera A digital camera is a camera that captures photographs in digital memory. Most cameras produced today are digital, largely replacing those that capture images on photographic film. Digital cameras are now widely incorporated into mobile devices ...
photography, the incoming
photon A photon () is an elementary particle that is a quantum of the electromagnetic field, including electromagnetic radiation such as light and radio waves, and the force carrier for the electromagnetic force. Photons are massless, so they alwa ...
s (
light Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation that can be perceived by the human eye. Visible light is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400–700 nanometres (nm), corresponding to frequencies of 750–420 t ...
) are converted to a
voltage Voltage, also known as electric pressure, electric tension, or (electric) potential difference, is the difference in electric potential between two points. In a static electric field, it corresponds to the work needed per unit of charge to ...
. This voltage then passes through the
signal processing Signal processing is an electrical engineering subfield that focuses on analyzing, modifying and synthesizing '' signals'', such as sound, images, and scientific measurements. Signal processing techniques are used to optimize transmissions, ...
chain of the digital camera and is
digitized DigitizationTech Target. (2011, April). Definition: digitization. ''WhatIs.com''. Retrieved December 15, 2021, from https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/digitization is the process of converting information into a Digital data, digital (i ...
by an
analog-to-digital converter In electronics, an analog-to-digital converter (ADC, A/D, or A-to-D) is a system that converts an analog signal, such as a sound picked up by a microphone or light entering a digital camera, into a digital signal. An ADC may also provide ...
. Any voltage fluctuations in the signal processing chain, that contribute to a deviation of analog-to-digital units, from the ideal value proportional to the photon count, is called read noise.


Effects of sensor size

The size of the
image sensor An image sensor or imager is a sensor that detects and conveys information used to make an image. It does so by converting the variable attenuation of light waves (as they pass through or reflect off objects) into signals, small bursts of c ...
, or effective light collection area per pixel sensor, is the largest determinant of signal levels that determine
signal-to-noise ratio Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR or S/N) is a measure used in science and engineering that compares the level of a desired signal to the level of background noise. SNR is defined as the ratio of signal power to the noise power, often expressed in de ...
and hence apparent noise levels, assuming the
aperture In optics, an aperture is a hole or an opening through which light travels. More specifically, the aperture and focal length of an optical system determine the cone angle of a bundle of rays that come to a focus in the image plane. An ...
area is proportional to sensor area, or that the
f-number In optics, the f-number of an optical system such as a camera lens is the ratio of the system's focal length to the diameter of the entrance pupil ("clear aperture").Smith, Warren ''Modern Optical Engineering'', 4th Ed., 2007 McGraw-Hill Pro ...
or focal-plane illuminance is held constant. That is, for a constant f-number, the sensitivity of an imager scales roughly with the sensor area, so larger sensors typically create lower noise images than smaller sensors. In the case of images bright enough to be in the
shot noise Shot noise or Poisson noise is a type of noise which can be modeled by a Poisson process. In electronics shot noise originates from the discrete nature of electric charge. Shot noise also occurs in photon counting in optical devices, where sh ...
limited regime, when the image is scaled to the same size on screen, or printed at the same size, the pixel count makes little difference to perceptible noise levels – the noise depends primarily on sensor area, not how this area is divided into pixels. For images at lower signal levels (higher ISO settings), where read noise (noise floor) is significant, more pixels within a given sensor area will make the image noisier if the per pixel read noise is the same. For example, the noise level produced by a
Four Thirds The Four Thirds System is a standard created by Olympus and Eastman Kodak for digital single-lens reflex camera (DSLR) and mirrorless camera design and development. The system provides a standard that, with digital cameras and lenses available ...
sensor at ISO 800 is roughly equivalent to that produced by a full frame sensor (with roughly four times the area) at ISO 3200, and that produced by a 1/2.5" compact camera sensor (with roughly 1/16 the area) at ISO 100. This ability to produce acceptable images at higher sensitivities is a major factor driving the adoption of
DSLR A digital single-lens reflex camera (digital SLR or DSLR) is a digital camera that combines the optics and the mechanisms of a single-lens reflex camera with a digital imaging sensor. The reflex design scheme is the primary difference between a ...
cameras, which tend to use larger sensors than compacts. An example shows a DSLR sensor at ISO 400 creating less noise than a point-and-shoot sensor at ISO 100.


Sensor fill factor

The
image sensor An image sensor or imager is a sensor that detects and conveys information used to make an image. It does so by converting the variable attenuation of light waves (as they pass through or reflect off objects) into signals, small bursts of c ...
has individual photosites to collect light from a given area. Not all areas of the sensor are used to collect light, due to other circuitry. A higher fill factor of a sensor causes more light to be collected, allowing for better ISO performance based on sensor size.


Sensor heat

Temperature can also have an effect on the amount of noise produced by an
image sensor An image sensor or imager is a sensor that detects and conveys information used to make an image. It does so by converting the variable attenuation of light waves (as they pass through or reflect off objects) into signals, small bursts of c ...
due to leakage. With this in mind, it is known that DSLRs will produce more noise during summer than in winter.


Noise reduction

An image is a picture, photograph or any other form of 2D representation of any scene. Most algorithms for converting
image sensor An image sensor or imager is a sensor that detects and conveys information used to make an image. It does so by converting the variable attenuation of light waves (as they pass through or reflect off objects) into signals, small bursts of c ...
data to an image, whether in-camera or on a computer, involve some form of
noise reduction Noise reduction is the process of removing noise from a signal. Noise reduction techniques exist for audio and images. Noise reduction algorithms may distort the signal to some degree. Noise rejection is the ability of a circuit to isolate an u ...
. There are many procedures for this, but all attempt to determine whether the actual differences in pixel values constitute noise or real photographic detail, and average out the former while attempting to preserve the latter. However, no algorithm can make this judgment perfectly (for all cases), so there is often a tradeoff made between noise removal and preservation of fine, low-contrast detail that may have characteristics similar to noise. A simplified example of the impossibility of unambiguous noise reduction: an area of uniform red in an image might have a very small black part. If this is a single pixel, it is likely (but not certain) to be spurious and noise; if it covers a few pixels in an absolutely regular shape, it may be a defect in a group of pixels in the image-taking sensor (spurious and unwanted, but not strictly noise); if it is irregular, it may be more likely to be a true feature of the image. But a definitive answer is not available. This decision can be assisted by knowing the characteristics of the source image and of human vision. Most noise reduction algorithms perform much more aggressive chroma noise reduction, since there is little important fine chroma detail that one risks losing. Furthermore, many people find luminance noise less objectionable to the eye, since its textured appearance mimics the appearance of
film grain Film grain or granularity is the random optical texture of processed photographic film due to the presence of small particles of a metallic silver, or dye clouds, developed from silver halide that have received enough photons. While film grain i ...
. The high sensitivity image quality of a given camera (or RAW development workflow) may depend greatly on the quality of the algorithm used for noise reduction. Since noise levels increase as ISO sensitivity is increased, most camera manufacturers increase the noise reduction aggressiveness automatically at higher sensitivities. This leads to a breakdown of image quality at higher sensitivities in two ways: noise levels increase and fine detail is smoothed out by the more aggressive noise reduction. In cases of extreme noise, such as astronomical images of very distant objects, it is not so much a matter of noise reduction as of extracting a little information buried in a lot of noise; techniques are different, seeking small regularities in massively random data.


Video noise

In
video Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) sy ...
and
television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...
, noise refers to the random dot pattern that is superimposed on the picture as a result of electronic noise, the 'snow' that is seen with poor (analog) television reception or on VHS tapes. Interference and static are other forms of noise, in the sense that they are unwanted, though not random, which can affect radio and television signals. Digital video noise is sometimes present on videos encoded in MPEG-2 format as a
compression artifact A compression artifact (or artefact) is a noticeable distortion of media (including images, audio, and video) caused by the application of lossy compression. Lossy data compression involves discarding some of the media's data so that it beco ...


Useful noise

High levels of noise are almost always undesirable, but there are cases when a certain amount of noise is useful, for example to prevent
discretization In applied mathematics, discretization is the process of transferring continuous functions, models, variables, and equations into discrete counterparts. This process is usually carried out as a first step toward making them suitable for numerica ...
artifacts (color banding or
posterization Posterization or posterisation of an image is the conversion of a continuous gradation of tone to several regions of fewer tones, causing abrupt changes from one tone to another. This was originally done with photographic processes to create p ...
). Some noise also increases
acutance In photography, acutance describes a subjective perception of sharpness that is related to the edge contrast of an image. Acutance is related to the amplitude of the derivative of brightness with respect to space. Due to the nature of the huma ...
(apparent sharpness). Noise purposely added for such purposes is called
dither Dither is an intentionally applied form of noise used to randomize quantization error, preventing large-scale patterns such as color banding in images. Dither is routinely used in processing of both digital audio and video data, and is often ...
; it improves the image perceptually, though it degrades the
signal-to-noise ratio Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR or S/N) is a measure used in science and engineering that compares the level of a desired signal to the level of background noise. SNR is defined as the ratio of signal power to the noise power, often expressed in de ...
.


Low and high-ISO noise examples

Canon 400D digital camera. Both images were shot under similar lighting conditions, varying only the ISO setting and shutter speed." widths="150px" heights="315px" perrow="5"> Image:Flower_at_100_ISO_for_comparison.JPG, Image:Flower_at_1600_ISO_for_comparison.JPG, Image:ISO_comparison_150px.jpg, Comparison of both images. This is a crop of a small section of each image displayed at 100%. The top portion was shot at 100 ISO, the bottom portion at 1600 ISO.


Low and high-ISO technical examination

An
image sensor An image sensor or imager is a sensor that detects and conveys information used to make an image. It does so by converting the variable attenuation of light waves (as they pass through or reflect off objects) into signals, small bursts of c ...
in a digital camera contains a fixed amount of pixels (which define the advertised
megapixels In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a raster image, or the smallest point in an all points addressable display device. In most digital display devices, pixels are the s ...
of the camera). These pixels have what is called a well depth. The pixel well can be thought of as a bucket. The ISO setting on a digital camera is the first (and sometimes only) user adjustable ( analog) gain setting in the signal processing chain. It determines the amount of gain applied to the voltage output from the image sensor and has a direct effect on read noise. All signal processing units within a digital camera system have a noise floor. The difference between the signal level and the noise floor is called the
signal-to-noise ratio Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR or S/N) is a measure used in science and engineering that compares the level of a desired signal to the level of background noise. SNR is defined as the ratio of signal power to the noise power, often expressed in de ...
. A higher signal-to-noise ratio equates to a better quality image. In bright sunny conditions, a slow shutter speed, wide open aperture, or some combination of all three, there can be sufficient photons hitting the image sensor to completely fill, or otherwise reach near capacity of the pixel wells. If the capacity of the pixel wells is exceeded, this equates to over exposure. When the pixel wells are at near capacity, the photons themselves that have been exposed to the image sensor, generate enough energy to excite the emission of
electron The electron ( or ) is a subatomic particle with a negative one elementary electric charge. Electrons belong to the first generation of the lepton particle family, and are generally thought to be elementary particles because they have n ...
s in the image sensor and generate sufficient voltage at the image sensor output, equating to a lack of need for ISO gain (higher ISO above the base setting of the camera). This equates to a sufficient signal level (from the image sensor) which is passed through the remaining signal processing electronics, resulting in a high signal-to-noise ratio, or low noise, or optimal exposure. Conversely, in darker conditions, faster shutter speeds, closed apertures, or some combination of all three, there can be a lack of sufficient photons hitting the image sensor to generate a suitable voltage from the image sensor to overcome the noise floor of the signal chain, resulting in a low signal-to-noise ratio, or high noise (predominately read noise). In these conditions, increasing ISO gain (higher ISO setting) will increase the image quality of the output image, as the ISO gain will amplify the low voltage from the image sensor and generate a higher signal-to-noise ratio through the remaining signal processing electronics. It can be seen that a higher ISO setting (applied correctly) does not, in and of itself, generate a higher noise level, and conversely, a higher ISO setting reduces read noise. The increase in noise often found when using a higher ISO setting is a result of the amplification of
shot noise Shot noise or Poisson noise is a type of noise which can be modeled by a Poisson process. In electronics shot noise originates from the discrete nature of electric charge. Shot noise also occurs in photon counting in optical devices, where sh ...
and a lower
dynamic range Dynamic range (abbreviated DR, DNR, or DYR) is the ratio between the largest and smallest values that a certain quantity can assume. It is often used in the context of signals, like sound and light. It is measured either as a ratio or as a base ...
as a result of technical limitations in current technology.


See also

*
Compression artifact A compression artifact (or artefact) is a noticeable distortion of media (including images, audio, and video) caused by the application of lossy compression. Lossy data compression involves discarding some of the media's data so that it beco ...
* EMVA1288 *
Fixed-pattern noise Fixed-pattern noise (FPN) is the term given to a particular noise pattern on digital imaging sensors often noticeable during longer exposure shots where particular pixels are susceptible to giving brighter intensities above the average intensity. ...
* Speckle noise


References


External links


Noise at dpreview glossary

Compact Camera High ISO modes: Separating the facts from the hype



Lectures on Image Processing
by Alan Peters. Vanderbilt University. Updated 7 January 2016. {{Noise Digital photography Image noise reduction techniques Noise (graphics)