Noise – thoughts on the photos in the resources section

Before moving on to the dynamic range exercises I thought I should record my thoughts on the ‘Grey Texture’ and ‘Turkish Dancer’ images.
First off - the grey texture. As the caption to the photo in the notes says, distinguishing detail from noise is ultimately subjective. While the print in the notes supports the view that the blotchiness is real the 200% crop suggests otherwise, on my screen at least. The blotchiness is definitely yellowy-green and blue and quite ugly – not something I would find acceptable at full size, (I confirmed this by reducing the image to 100%) although I suspect at smaller sizes it might be usable – as it clearly is in print. The notes suggest this is real detail but I am unconvinced – the only real detail I could make out in the fabric was a trace of vertical pin-striping just below the sleeve. This vertical patterning became slightly more obvious once the size was reduced.
Moving on to the Turkish dancer I find the noise much less intrusive. As the notes suggest, the level of detail in the silver brocade is comparable to the detail in the noise, and the noise over the velvet areas shows much less pronounced colouring and evidence of noise is very much reduced once the crop is reduced to 100% size rather than the 300% presented. I think also that the slight movement blur also acts to disguise the effect of the noise in some way, which also reduces its intrusiveness.