JPEG noise & big tiffs...

Anybody care to share their favorite way to eliminate JPEG noise?

I typically use a blur, then a sharpen, but it doesn't work on some images.

Oh, and you know those hot new digital cameras that cook up a nice big FAT .tiff file? they - S_U_C_K- !!!

There is just as much noise in those images. Which leads me to beleive what I suspected all along: they shoot a JPEG, and then the camera converts it to a .tiff before the silly consumer knows what hit 'em.

those clever camera companies, god bess 'em.

I've discovered that the more light you have available when taking a picture, the less noise you have to deal with. Many times the built in flash isn't enough. I get great pictures from my cheapy HP 315 outside on nice days, but inside stuff usually requires some work.

As far as getting rid of noise...the technique will vary depending upon exposure and subject. Usually it involves working on individual channels, but there is no real magic formula. It takes experimentation.

Check this article by Pete Bauer over at PlanetPhotoshopto get some ideas on where to start.

Yeah. Best way to do it is to look at your individual color channels, and either add noise, gaussian blur them, or both. Adjusting levels may help a bit too.

You can also change to lab mode and fiddle even more with removing jpeg artifacting through the lab color channels, but I usually don't resort to that.

Channels. channels, channnels....

and its usually the "blue" that has the major JPEG artifacts...

Cameras need to save to PNG format on their flash memory and the twain/import software should switch formats if needed.

Tiffs are way too big for their own good on low memory imaging devices.