Made major rookie mistake! Help!

I have been doing portraits and sports photography for some time and also do headshots and commerical shoots. However, I’m inexperianced in events and just made soem serious mistakes that have me hanging my head in shame and fear. I just got a new camera and decided to ahoot withbit ( a day after it arrived). Low light indoor with high ceiling. I stupidly decided to avoid using flash and instead took all images with no flash. It was a large event and I was nervous and still not 100% on the new camera. Long story short, my ISO was incredibly high... 160000 and all images have a lot of grain. I was reading it as 1600!!! Im so mortified and horrified. The grain is really too much to change much pp. i was briefly checking inages in camera and they seemed ok...but of course couldnt tell until I uploaded. I am so dissapointed in myself and cant believe I was misreading the numbers. What can I do???? I use Lightroom usually. Can any other editing program help me with such high ISO? I will have to tell the client and issue a refund. Ugh. I have never done such a terrible job and I know it's 1000% my fault. The worse thing is not the refund, but That the pics are terrible. I feel awful for my client. How can I at least try salvage some of the pics? No black and white is requested.

I’m no digital expert, but I suspect you are stuck with them largely as they are. I would apologise profusely, offer to give them some of the better shots FOC and give a refund. At least that way you can leave with your dignity intact knowing you have done the right thing under the circumstances. You might want to have a reminder for next time in your head ‘do the shutter speeds look about right for the lighting conditions?’ You were 6 stops over what you thought you were at so that should be noticeable. Don’t beat yourself up, we all make mistakes, an nobody died!

There are numerous software packages that purport to reduce grain / improve images in high ISO pictures. Suggest you google 'reduce grain in high ISO pictures' for example. One product that comes with a free download is Noise Reduction Software | How to Fix Grainy Photos Go do some work and then some combination of the previous suggestion and improved images may save you. Be professional. Good luck.

Right...We take it this was a wedding? I would run them through a 3rd party N/R, cull them super tight, make lots of them black and white and reduce the file sizes, this of course after pleading your case..Sorry to hear this and best of luck!

Other Lightroom & Photoshop N/R plugins you can try are Nik Dfine (free), Topaz Denoise and Noise Ninja. I'm sure how effective they'll be with ISO that high. They can't put the missing detail back, just smooth out the lum. and color noise blips. There also some Photoshop filters ('dust and scratches', 'blur') that - masked - could be useful.

 

One advantage of using Photoshop over Lightroom (with the same plugins) in this case might be that Photoshop allows you (or someone else) to work more finely. You can add multiple N/R layers each with a different filter - or filter intensity. You can choose how little or how much you want to blend in each filter layer and use masks to apply each filter layer more heavily in some areas of a photo than in others. Most N/R software - unless used sparingly - can have the effect of making edges look less sharp and surfaces - especially 'faces' - look a bit plasticky. So its a fine balance for each photo. That's why Photoshop can be useful in applying a N/R filter layer more lightly on foreground edges and on facial features than on larger areas that have little texture. If you know someone who knows his/her way around Photoshop, perhaps they could help.

 

I'd try one or two of the N/R plugins in Lightroom first to see what you might be able to salvage. And to see whether they work any better than just by tweaking Lightroom's native N/R settings! I usually use Topaz DeNoise but I've had good results with Dfine too.

 

Good luck!

Question: what was the camera?

But whatever it was, you cannot get clean, sharp images at this ISO. To mask your mistake you could convert into b&w and put grain and tell them it is your style. :)

If the customers start to critisize you strictly or want RAW - just refund money 100%. It will be a lesson.

To avoid these mistakes set maximum ISO in menu to 6400, (I set 3200). :rolleyes:

When I had a primitive noisy camera I covered events at maximum ISO 400

(discipline!) and got good shots in 97% of them (have a look at just dance thread - ISO 400).

Good luck..

contact a professional retoutcher n see if f they can save your images. hopefully the client may get pix from other guests.

 

never use equipment you arent 100% familiar with.

Refund the money and hope they don't sue you.

mmmm i wonder how suing may turn out? small claims court (USA) will only award you due compensation to become whole. i think at most all they will get is a full refund. what else can make them whole?... you dont get pain n suffering on a contract breach.

If the money is refunded, there are no grounds for a lawsuit, just disappointment.

It is not explicit that this job was a Wedding: that needs to be clarified.

 

The Camera used and the fact that the exposures were reasonably accurate (or not) will have an affect the outcome of any de-noise proceedure.

 

The Topaz and Noise Ninja products mentioned by mikemorrell have worked well for me used on images made at more conservative ISO levels than 160,000ISO de-noise

 

Three major Business Options in this situation include:

a) re-shooting part or whole of the job

b) refund

c) service or goods as compensation

and these three options are not individually exclusive of each other.

 

The best business advice in this type of situation always to develop an outcome plan (or options) and communicate those concisely and honestly, as quickly as possible to the Client.

 

WW

Thank you for all the responses.

 

It was not a wedding, nor can it be repeated, nor did they request black and white.

 

Saying that, all images taken with my second camera are good, but that was all a different part of the event.

 

I will gladly refund all the money and admit this was my mistake. BUT I have edited all the pics and are not as bad as they were. In fact, I am creating copies and having both color and BW available but the BW look great. If it were a wedding, I think they would be very desirable in fact. But it’s not wedding photos...

 

I plan on sending out this week and will hope for good feedback. If not, I will offer a refund or possibly a free service.

 

I really was horrified when I saw what I had done, and think the best tip here is to set a max iso so I NEVER do that again, unintentionally.

I'm glad to hear that the photos look better than they were!

 

It's just a thought, but if the edited photos - in color - are still not up to your usual standard, you might want to just say that up front, apologize and offer them free of charge or with a discount. Or in B/W. That changes the relationship with your client and the criteria on which the feedback is based.

 

People usually understand that mistakes can happen. If your client sees that your honest about it, have produced the best results you can and also accept that - at least in color - they're not quite up to standard, these will be the criteria for the feedback. This is different to first delivering the photos and - if the client is less than pleased or really doesn't want B/W - offering a refund.

 

It depends on whether the client is likely to notice a difference in quality between photos taken with the 1st and 2nd cameras.

 

Mike

 

 

 

Thank you for all the responses.

 

It was not a wedding, nor can it be repeated, nor did they request black and white.

 

Saying that, all images taken with my second camera are good, but that was all a different part of the event.

 

I will gladly refund all the money and admit this was my mistake. BUT I have edited all the pics and are not as bad as they were. In fact, I am creating copies and having both color and BW available but the BW look great. If it were a wedding, I think they would be very desirable in fact. But it’s not wedding photos...

 

I plan on sending out this week and will hope for good feedback. If not, I will offer a refund or possibly a free service.

 

I really was horrified when I saw what I had done, and think the best tip here is to set a max iso so I NEVER do that again, unintentionally.