Non-Original sized photos pixelated in gallery view

shrekie

Hi,

I have just uploaded a series of photos and the images in the gallery look very pixelated in the small size all the way up to the XL3 size (if you look along the edges of the white rope and around the boy's body as well as a lot of the sky, you'll see what I'm referring to.)

I have enabled Original sizes in the gallery settings.

The sample photo is here:
http://lookingglassphotography.smugmug.com/gallery/4751621_XE85t#281367189_Ko2iQ

The pixelation is not present when viewed in the Original size (there is slight pixelation due to pushing the saturation of the colours, but the effect is relatively smooth and the artifact is nowhere near as bad as when viewed in any of the other non-Original sizes.)

The image was shot in RAW, processed in Aperture and exported as a full quality jpg to upload into smugmug. When I view the full quality jpg file in Apple's Preview, it does not look pixelated in any of the sizes at all.

Does anyone know why it looks so horrible as a smaller size? I haven't had this experience with any of my other uploaded photos before. I've noticed that when I play it as part of the gallery slideshow, it looks horribly pixelated as well.

Thanks,

Nelson

Andy

shrekie wrote:

Hi,

I have just uploaded a series of photos and the images in the gallery look very pixelated in the small size all the way up to the XL3 size (if you look along the edges of the white rope and around the boy's body as well as a lot of the sky, you'll see what I'm referring to.)

I have enabled Original sizes in the gallery settings.

The sample photo is here:
http://lookingglassphotography.smugmug.com/gallery/4751621_XE85t#281367189_Ko2iQ

The pixelation is not present when viewed in the Original size (there is slight pixelation due to pushing the saturation of the colours, but the effect is relatively smooth and the artifact is nowhere near as bad as when viewed in any of the other non-Original sizes.)

The image was shot in RAW, processed in Aperture and exported as a full quality jpg to upload into smugmug. When I view the full quality jpg file in Apple's Preview, it does not look pixelated in any of the sizes at all.

Does anyone know why it looks so horrible as a smaller size? I haven't had this experience with any of my other uploaded photos before. I've noticed that when I play it as part of the gallery slideshow, it looks horribly pixelated as well.

Thanks,

Nelson

Hm, can you tell us what you are seeing?

Small:


Medium:


Large:


X3 Large:

shrekie

Hi Andy,

If you cast your eye along the white rope, to either side of it, there is a higher degree of pixelation compared to other parts of the image. In the medium sized image, it is even more noticeable around the edges of the boy's figure. As you're a mac user (:-)), if you just enlarge any of the images on your screen by clicking (alt)+(apple)+(+) several times when looking at any of these images, it will give you an idea of the issue that I'm seeing. I know that this is not an accurate way to magnify an image, but the same method used to enlarge the original jpg on my screen doesn't show up these artifacts.

Thanks,

Nelson

None of these artifacts are present in the same

Andy

Nelson, it's not uncommon with an image like this. It's also more noticeable to some folks than others. You can adjust the sharpening settings for this one gallery if you like, I'd suggest 0.

http://www.smugmug.com/help/display-quality

Once you reset the sharpening settings, then reupload the image.

shrekie

Andy wrote:

Nelson, it's not uncommon with an image like this. It's also more noticeable to some folks than others. You can adjust the sharpening settings for this one gallery if you like, I'd suggest 0.

http://www.smugmug.com/help/display-quality

Once you reset the sharpening settings, then reupload the image.

Thanks Andy,

So would you suggest adjusting ALL of the sharpening levels to 0 (ie. unsharp amount, unsharp radius, unsharp threshold, and unsharp sigma)?

I've just spent the last 24 hours uploading several hundred photos already (upload speeds are significantly slower than download speeds)...does that mean I have to upload them all again:(

Nelson

Andy

shrekie wrote:

Thanks Andy,

So would you suggest adjusting ALL of the sharpening levels to 0 (ie. unsharp amount, unsharp radius, unsharp threshold, and unsharp sigma)?

I can't really say, as it's an individual thing -- give it a whirl till you have the recipe that YOU like. Keep in mind, the defaults have worked well for nearly 300,000,000 images so don't go crazy

shrekie

Andy wrote:

I can't really say, as it's an individual thing -- give it a whirl till you have the recipe that YOU like. Keep in mind, the defaults have worked well for nearly 300,000,000 images so don't go crazy

Ok, thanks Andy:)

So as a general rule, if the image has already gone through a pass of sharpening in post PRIOR to uploading to smugmug, would you advise not to add any FURTHER sharpening with the smugmug defaults? (Just wondering if you've had any experience or feedback on this.)

Thanks again:)

Andy

shrekie wrote:

Ok, thanks Andy:)

So as a general rule, if the image has already gone through a pass of sharpening in post PRIOR to uploading to smugmug, would you advise not to add any FURTHER sharpening with the smugmug defaults? (Just wondering if you've had any experience or feedback on this.)

Thanks again:)

Most display copies need a bit of sharpening after we make the resized copies. Our recipe is working great - you can safely leave it at default.

For certain photos, you may want more or less. Adjust to taste

shrekie

Andy wrote:

Most display copies need a bit of sharpening after we make the resized copies. Our recipe is working great - you can safely leave it at default.

For certain photos, you may want more or less. Adjust to taste

Ok, most of my uploads seemed to have worked fine with the defaults so far, but in future, I can only really adjust to taste after I have uploaded photos to see the effects of the default sharpening settings – and then if I need to change the settings for individual photos, I would need to delete them from the gallery, change the sharpening settings, and upload them all over again?

jfriend

shrekie wrote:

Hi,

I have just uploaded a series of photos and the images in the gallery look very pixelated in the small size all the way up to the XL3 size (if you look along the edges of the white rope and around the boy's body as well as a lot of the sky, you'll see what I'm referring to.)

I have enabled Original sizes in the gallery settings.

The sample photo is here:
http://lookingglassphotography.smugmug.com/gallery/4751621_XE85t#281367189_Ko2iQ

The pixelation is not present when viewed in the Original size (there is slight pixelation due to pushing the saturation of the colours, but the effect is relatively smooth and the artifact is nowhere near as bad as when viewed in any of the other non-Original sizes.)

The image was shot in RAW, processed in Aperture and exported as a full quality jpg to upload into smugmug. When I view the full quality jpg file in Apple's Preview, it does not look pixelated in any of the sizes at all.

Does anyone know why it looks so horrible as a smaller size? I haven't had this experience with any of my other uploaded photos before. I've noticed that when I play it as part of the gallery slideshow, it looks horribly pixelated as well.

Thanks,

Nelson

When I study the original up close, it looks like it has some pretty serious sharpening halos around the rope and the right side of the boy. I suspect it's those existing halos when combined with downsampling for display versions, more JPEG compression and a light dark boundary that are all conspiring together to make this more visible. I suspect you would not see this issue in the Smugmug display copies if the original didn't have the sharpening halos that it does. If this was sharpening you applied yourself, you may want to look for a better way to sharpen the original that doesn't make such strong halos as an easier solution than varying Smugmug's display copy sharpening.

Now, to put this in perspective. I have a high resolution monitor and I cannot see the issue you are talking about in the Smugmug display copy at normal size. I have to take it into Photoshop and blow it up beyond 100% to see it. Different people seem to have a different sensitivity to this issue, but you might take comfort in the fact that many/most people won't be able to see what you are referring to.

My overall suggestion would be to reduce the sharpening halos in the originals and leave Smugmug's sharpening settings where they are.

shrekie

jfriend wrote:

When I study the original up close, it looks like it has some pretty serious sharpening halos around the rope and the right side of the boy. I suspect it's those existing halos when combined with downsampling for display versions, more JPEG compression and a light dark boundary that are all conspiring together to make this more visible. I suspect you would not see this issue in the Smugmug display copies if the original didn't have the sharpening halos that it does. If this was sharpening you applied yourself, you may want to look for a better way to sharpen the original that doesn't make such strong halos as an easier solution than varying Smugmug's display copy sharpening.

Now, to put this in perspective. I have a high resolution monitor and I cannot see the issue you are talking about in the Smugmug display copy at normal size. I have to take it into Photoshop and blow it up beyond 100% to see it. Different people seem to have a different sensitivity to this issue, but you might take comfort in the fact that many/most people won't be able to see what you are referring to.

My overall suggestion would be to reduce the sharpening halos in the originals and leave Smugmug's sharpening settings where they are.

Thanks for taking a look John...much appreciated:)

There was only mild sharpening applied to the image in Aperture, and when I look at the original, I don't see the halo effect that you're referring to.

My understanding was that the sharpening with smugmug is only applied to all images up to and not including the original image. Is that correct? If so, I'm a bit confused as to what would be the best thing to do, because if I want the original to have a certain level of sharpness and available for download, then the original would be fine, but all smaller sizes would have an artifact due to the second round of sharpening when uploaded onto smugmug. But if I want the display photos to appear without any artifacts, I have to upload an original image that is not as sharpened as I would like it to be...

As you said, most people would not notice it, but because most of us view our own sites and images often, we would like it to look as best as it possibly can to us as well for our own personal enjoyment, especially with the time and effort invested into the production of the photograph and the website:)

jfriend

shrekie wrote:

Thanks for taking a look John...much appreciated:)

There was only mild sharpening applied to the image in Aperture, and when I look at the original, I don't see the halo effect that you're referring to.

My understanding was that the sharpening with smugmug is only applied to all images up to and not including the original image. Is that correct? If so, I'm a bit confused as to what would be the best thing to do, because if I want the original to have a certain level of sharpness and available for download, then the original would be fine, but all smaller sizes would have an artifact due to the second round of sharpening when uploaded onto smugmug. But if I want the display photos to appear without any artifacts, I have to upload an original image that is not as sharpened as I would like it to be...

As you said, most people would not notice it, but because most of us view our own sites and images often, we would like it to look as best as it possibly can to us as well for our own personal enjoyment, especially with the time and effort invested into the production of the photograph and the website:)

Here's a 300% crop of your original. There's a dark black line on the right hand side of the rope and person. I can see no reason that that would be a natural occurrence (it's on the sunny side, not the shadow side), therefore I think it must be some artifact of post processing. This dark black line is what, I think, is causing what you see in the smaller sizes. The resize algorithm thinks this is a piece of detail that it is trying to preserve when resizing and then the normal resharpening enhances it further. It is possible to apply an appropriate amount of sharpening without ending up with this dark black line.

If you want to share the original image right out of the camera, we can look at whether the camera did this or alternate ways to sharpen it without causing this.

I think the best way to prevent this issue in the Smugmug display sizes is to prevent getting this artifact or halo in the originals.

shrekie

jfriend wrote:

Here's a 300% crop of your original. There's a dark black line on the right hand side of the rope and person. I can see no reason that that would be a natural occurrence (it's on the sunny side, not the shadow side), therefore I think it must be some artifact of post processing. This dark black line is what, I think, is causing what you see in the smaller sizes. The resize algorithm thinks this is a piece of detail that it is trying to preserve when resizing and then the normal resharpening enhances it further. It is possible to apply an appropriate amount of sharpening without ending up with this dark black line.

If you want to share the original image right out of the camera, we can look at whether the camera did this or alternate ways to sharpen it without causing this.

I think the best way to prevent this issue in the Smugmug display sizes is to prevent getting this artifact or halo in the originals.

Thanks again John:)
You're right...there does appear to be a black line around the edge there which is not present in the RAW file when I had a look at it again.

It makes it a bit challenging to know what will or will not be acceptable levels of sharpening in each individual photo when minute artifacts like this one are magnified with the smugmug sharpening on upload. And when uploading large numbers of high resolution photos, it's just not feasible to upload each one and check them individually, and then re-tweak again and re-upload if the artifacts are present.

My original file is in RAW format which I'm presuming won't be able to be viewed when uploaded into my gallery, but thanks for the offer to take a look. I might just live with it for now.