For years, I was scared to raise my ISO. Anything over 400 or 800 felt like I was ruining my photo on purpose. I used to think high ISO meant the whole image would be covered in ugly noise, and the moment I tried to fix it, everything would turn soft and muddy.
But during a workshop on the Oregon coast with my buddy Josh Snow, everything changed. We shot waves crashing like monsters, quiet scenes in the redwoods, tiny mushrooms, banana slugs, and even a seagull that looked ready for a portrait session. A lot of these scenes were in low light, so we had no choice but to use high ISOs. And guess what? The results were great.
The big reason is this: AI noise reduction in Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom is incredible now. It doesn’t just hide the noise, it keeps the detail. When I zoomed into one of my ISO 3200 wave shots (my kids said it looked like a xenomorph), the noise looked rough at first. But after using Denoise, the photo cleaned up fast, and the texture of the water was still there.
After that, I used manual noise reduction and sharpening to fine-tune the look. Today, sharpening isn’t only something you do at the end. You can sharpen right after noise reduction and get great detail back, as long as you use masking, radius, and detail correctly. The before-and-after difference is huge.
The point is simple: you don’t need to fear high ISO anymore. The tools are powerful enough to handle it. The most important thing is capturing the moment, not babying your settings.
If you want to go deeper comparing cameras, pushing noise reduction, and pulling even more detail in Photoshop, I’m teaching a live event on November 25th. You can watch it live or catch the replay, but get registered below!
For Blake, it's all about the art and process synergy. He dives deep into complex topics and makes them easy to understand through his outside-the-box thinking so that you can use these tricks in your workflow today!
