Visibility of noise in homogeneous and textured areas

A study to find a measure of noise in good accord with its visibility was conducted. The effect of average luminance level on noise visibility and the effect of gradual and stepwise luminance changes were studied. Results indicate that noise visibility is strongly affected by average luminance level while the effects of luminance changes are weak. As a first approximation it is recommended to use the ratio between noise RMS and average luminance as an index of noise visibility and to compute noise visibility in textured areas by averaging noise-luminance ratios.