High ISO - low noise rendition

[rnovo]

Hello, Haven't found the answer to a problem I have regarding this rendition initially in LR CC Classic and developed in PS CC.

I upgraded to CC classic from CS5 non extended and LR4 because I want to get images (Pentax K5IIs 16MB each) shot at ISO above 3600 with minimal noise - without using Noise Reduction tools. A well known technique requires that a number of identical shots be taken (10 in my case, about !GB total) and developed in LR and then sent to PS for processing as: Alignment/Smart Object/Stack Mode/Median. The process balks at the Alignment stage until you stop after 20 min + of nothing... I tried switching from my external HD to the internal one (iMac 2015 with 16GB of RAM) with still ne change. My computer is running correctly and the Activity Monitor shows normal loading in "Memory". I can't figure out where to look and what to do next to trouble shoot. I'm new at LR CC Classic so I may have some settings/preferences  wrong although it seems that all was updated from my old LR4 during transfer...?

Does anybody have some ideas on what to look for...?

[Chuck Uebele]

Not really sure what's going on. are your importing the images from LR, or are you using the Photoshop feature: load files into stack? Are these images normal pixel layers and not separately in smart objects? Have you tried aligning fewer images? Were they shot on a tripod: do they really need alignment?

[rnovo]

Hi Chuck,

This testing was done hand held at ISO6400 1/15 f4.0. After carrying out required developping I'm exporting those 10 images from LR to PS using the command: Photo>Edit in> Open as Layers in PS. Once in PS I launch the command: Edit> Auto-Align Layers. The process stalls pretty soon, the progress bar stops at about 1/2" long and the time wheel keeps turning. I tried with 3 images with the same result. It looks like i'm missing something in Preferences or some other setting since I'm switching from LR4 and CS5 non extended...?

See this link for the whole workflow:

http://www.lensworkonline.com/resourcelibrary/creativelabs/LCL-063%20High%20ISO,%20Low%20Noise/LCL-0...

[Chuck Uebele]

Have you tried just opening the images in PS and not going through LR?

[rnovo]

I just tried that, and, in doing so I ticked off the "Geometric correction" box, and...it worked in about 3 min...!!! I'll have to look this up and find out more. Thanks anyway, Chuck.

[Chuck Uebele · Accepted solution]

Oh, yea, the geometric correction does a lot of adjustments. Not something you want to use most of the time.