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Best Way to Reduce Noise in DaVinci Resolve

Direct methods for applying temporal noise reduction, preserving sharpness, and isolating shadows in DaVinci Resolve Studio.

The best way to reduce noise in DaVinci Resolve is to apply Temporal Noise reduction on the Color page, separate the luma and chroma thresholds, and isolate the effect to the shadows to preserve detail.

Here are the direct methods to best reduce noise in DaVinci Resolve.

What is the fastest way to apply Temporal Noise Reduction?

If you shot video in a dark room with a high ISO and the footage is ruined by crawling digital grain, you must mathematically average the pixels over time to smooth it out. Note: This requires the paid Studio version.

To quickly apply Temporal Noise Reduction:

  1. Go to the Color page and create a new node at the very beginning of your node tree (before any color grading).
  2. Open the Motion Effects panel (the icon looks like a square with a tracking line, next to the tracker).
  3. Under Temporal Noise Reduction, set the Frames to 2.
  4. Change the Motion Est. Type to Better.
  5. Increase the Temporal Threshold for both Luma and Chroma to 10.0. The crawling grain will instantly disappear, leaving a clean image.

How do you fix a "plastic" or blurry face after noise reduction?

If the noise reduction worked but the actor's skin looks like smooth, blurry plastic with zero texture, you pushed the Luma threshold too high, destroying the fine detail.

To fix blurry faces after noise reduction:

  1. In the Motion Effects panel, click the chain-link icon next to the Temporal Threshold to unlink the Luma and Chroma sliders.
  2. Drop the Luma (brightness/detail) slider back down to 0 or 5.0. This brings the sharpness and skin pores back.
  3. Keep the Chroma (color) slider high (e.g., 15.0). Digital noise is mostly ugly color splotches; removing just the color noise cleans the image without destroying the sharp details.

How do you isolate noise reduction to the shadows?

If the noise is only visible in the dark background corners but applying the effect slows down your entire timeline, you must limit the heavy processing to the dark areas only.

To isolate noise reduction to the shadows:

  1. On the node with the noise reduction applied, open the Qualifier (Eyedropper) panel.
  2. Turn off the Hue and Saturation checkboxes.
  3. Leave the Luminance checkbox on. Adjust the High and High Soft sliders so that only the dark areas of the image are selected (turn on the magic wand Highlight tool to see the mask).
  4. The noise reduction will now only process the shadows, saving massive computer resources and protecting the bright, clean parts of your video from unnecessary blurring.