Hi all,

Very newbie question here! I am getting a fair number of rejections, mainly from Adobe Stock, on the basis of noise/grain. Most of the photos rejected on this basis have been accepted elsewhere, so it could be a quirk of Adobe - but my question is, is there some way to check in editing software for noise levels, beyond 'eyeballing'?

I check my shots at 100% but it's hard to cover all areas, I mainly check the focal points for sharpness and the darkest/brightest areas for noise and blown highlights( also with the histogram).

Is there a way to 'highlight' noise like there is for blown highlights, or some way of seeing it like on a graph?

Thanks!

It varies, my main camera at the moment is Olympus OM-D EM5 mk2, 17mm f1.8 lens; sometimes I use a smartphone (Pixel 2) but usually submit those just to smartphone-specific agencies. I've got some older images too taken on a Canon DSLR.

Sometimes I can see the noise and understand the rejection, other times I can't see it. Maybe I jut need to train my eye better, but if there are 'technical' ways to check such as graphs that would be helpful.

AS tends to be pickier for these types of rejection than other agencies, but make up for it with dubious commercial images with identifiable people and/or logos, so it's OK!

I would add that as well as reasonable use of noise reduction, to go minus on clarity in Lightroom, although not so much that it will make the image too soft. Ideally expose correctly in-camera and use low ISO (if possible).

Are you opening up shadows much? Sometimes this exposes noises.

Would help to post some examples.