posterized images after uploading

oreid

Howdy,

I'm a new smugmug user, and so far I'm quite pleased. However, I have found that when I upload an image that looks fine to start with, the version that appears in my gallery is sometimes badly posterized. I have to assume that this is the result of the image processing smugmug does to get a variety of file sizes to display. Here's an example where the sky has become posterized:



To be clear, there is no visible posterization in the original version of this file. I've been uploading at 1600x1200 with a maximum file size of 1000kb. Is there anything I can do with my original file or my smugmug settings to keep this from happening?

Thanks!
-O

SamirD

What color space are you using in your source files?

Andy

oreid wrote: »

To be clear, there is no visible posterization in the original version of this file.

Hi, here's a 100% crop from the original of that file, and I'm sorry to say, there is indeed posterization evident:



How did you process your file, exactly? Give us all the steps, we can help.

Allen

I had this problem some years ago, I added too much contrast which doesn't
play well with sky and adds banding. Clear sky is basically a gradient. I would
now-a-days create a dup layer and masked out the sky before working on
the rest.

oreid

I've figured it out. Thanks for the comments and suggestions!
I was using Lightroom 3 to process raw files from a Canon G10, and using the publish feature to upload the files directly to SmugMug.

The problem was in my publish settings. I had limited the file size to 1000k, but NOT checked the resizing option. So I was trying to upload full resolution with a crazy amount of compression (these are 15 MP files).

When I was comparing to "originals" I was looking at jpeg exports form Lightroom using the settings I *thought* I had setup for the publish feature. Really, apples to oranges.

So, thanks for the help, even if it was my own silly mistake in the end.

SamirD

Great to hear it was a simple fix!