Imagenomic Portraiture - Artifacts when converting to JPEG

anonymouscuban · November 22, 2009

I am having some major issues with Portraiture creating artifacts in my pictures. See the sample below:

See the halo like hotspots around her chest and shoulder? You can really see it the split-tone image which is why posted it.

My workflow for the color version was simply to adjust WB and crop the RAW image in LR. I then export to CS4 and then run the Portraiture plugin. Make my adjustments in Portraiture and then save the new file back to LR as a TIFF. I then export to Smug as a JPEG. I only see the issue when the pic is converted to JPEG. The TIFF file is clean.

The image is a 16-bit but I tried to save as 8-bit and I get the same thing. I've tried to export in all three color spaces: AdobeRGB, sRGB and ProPhoto RGB. I'm really stumped by this. I can't imagine this simply due to compressing the image to JPEG.

Are any of you using Portraiture and do you have this issue?

anonymouscuban · November 22, 2009

Actually, I tried the different color spaces and it seems like sRGB and AdobeRGB reduce the problem significantly. I can still see it but its not nearly as bad. I really have to look for it to find it.

Interesting.

sRGB version:

BinaryFx · November 23, 2009

anonymouscuban wrote:

I am having some major issues with Portraiture creating artifacts in my pictures. See the sample below:

Can you do similar things with Photoshop, to see if you get the same artifacts? Or is this why you are using the plug-in, because you don't know how or have the time to do similar with Phtoshop?

See the halo like hotspots around her chest and shoulder? You can really see it the split-tone image which is why posted it.

Yes, some bad "banding" or "contouring" or "posterization".

I presume that these come out in print and that it is not just a monitor issue?

One way to break up these artifacts is to use noise, I prefer "smart noise":

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~binaryfx/howto_smartnoise.html

That being said, you probably used the plug-in to smooth out skin, which may have contributed to the posterization issue - so you may not wish to add noise...the noise can be layer masked into just the problem areas so that "flat" areas of skin do not gain the noise.

Anyway, adding noise is often a last resort option, it is best to figure out how to avoid the tonal problems in the first place.

My workflow for the color version was simply to adjust WB and crop the RAW image in LR. I then export to CS4 and then run the Portraiture plugin.

No change of exposure? What are your brightness and contrast settings? What about clarity or curves? What RGB space is the export, ProPhoto RGB? What bit depth, 16bpc?

Make my adjustments in Portraiture and then save the new file back to LR as a TIFF. I then export to Smug as a JPEG. I only see the issue when the pic is converted to JPEG. The TIFF file is clean.

Have you tried different quality levels for the JPEG, from max quality to lesser?

The image is a 16-bit but I tried to save as 8-bit and I get the same thing. I've tried to export in all three color spaces: AdobeRGB, sRGB and ProPhoto RGB. I'm really stumped by this. I can't imagine this simply due to compressing the image to JPEG.

It is probably a mixture of the smoothing and or tonal work in the plug-in which is then having problems when going to JPEG. Do you get the same result if you repeat the same workflow without using the plug-in? It is my guess that the "natural" image has enough noise in it to avoid such issues when going to JPEG, however aggressive smoothing may be "compressing" the tonal gradations and removing the natural noise of the image which helps to break up reduced tonal steps.

Hope this helps,

Stephen Marsh

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~binaryfx
http://prepression.blogspot.com

BinaryFx · November 23, 2009

anonymouscuban wrote:

Actually, I tried the different color spaces and it seems like sRGB and AdobeRGB reduce the problem significantly. I can still see it but its not nearly as bad. I really have to look for it to find it.

Interesting.

A wide gamut RGB space like ProPhoto RGB is great if your subjects are saturated and contain detail, however does it make sense to use such a space for images that can fit into smaller spaces? Opinions differ! Some use the widest possible space for all images, while others prefer to try to fit the image content and edits to the appropriate colour space.

I have checked out your other thread, which explains the lighting.

Are you using a diffuser on the flash? Are you bouncing it off a wall or something? Lowering the flash intensity? I think you must be doing something to soften it a bit, although there are still some strong shadows in the other shots.

Perhaps it would help if your subject was more evenly lit with a higher exposure. I know that you would then have more "flat" lighting and that would change the feel of the shot...I would be altering the mood with post production methods.

Your wife's forehead is more lit than her shoulders/upper arms, which have more fall off on them. These areas occupy the darker tones, which may have less information in them than the ligher tones and are thus showing degradation earlier than the ligher tones.

At this point, my two posts are more a collection of questions and random thoughts, which may or may not be helpful!

Sincerely,

Stephen Marsh

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~binaryfx
http://prepression.blogspot.com

anonymouscuban · November 23, 2009

Stephen,

I do appreciate all your help. All very interesting and you've got me thinking about different things that I didn''t know about color space and such.

However, I think it is my monitor. I viewed the same pictures on a different monitor and I don't see the banding. Do you see it on your monitor?

I don't know if it shows up in print since I do not print my own images and I have yet to order any that I have run through this plugin.

I'd be curious to know if others are seeing the issue on their monitors.

Alex

pathfinder · November 23, 2009

I do not see halos or hot spots around her shoulder on my MacBook screen at work

It may be only your monitor where you see it. You might see if you still see the artifacts in a small portion of a large print as well. You may be fine.

Imagenomic Portraiture - Artifacts when converting to JPEG

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