I read this article the other day and in it describes a technique to increase the amount of detail and to reduce the noise of digital photographic images. The method requires that one take multiple images of the same scene, ie. burst mode, while hand-holding the camera and trying to be relatively still.

I tested the method described in the aforementioned article with a set of 28 images I took with my Asus smartphone. The overall process basically consists of:

1. loading the images into layer stack in Photoshop
2. resizing the images by 200%
3. auto-align the layers
4. convert the layers into smart object
5. blend the layers using mean mode
6. flatten the layers
7. apply smart sharpening on the image
8. resize image back down to the original size

Here is my result after a long processing time in Photoshop, and as you can see below, the processed image contains much less noise and more fine details whereas the unprocessed image is very noisy.

Processed image

click the image to enlarge

Unprocessed image

click the image to enlarge

Although this technique is very time consuming, the result is worth the effort. I can only imagine it will be a matter of time before smartphones will be able to process the images at a faster rate. A downside to this method is that it will only work optimally for scenes with little to no motion.

Equipment Used

• Camera: Asus Zenfone 4
• Software: Adobe Photoshop CC