Forgot Password
Pentax Camera Forums Home
 

Reply
Show Printable Version Search this Thread
02-25-2017, 01:11 PM   #1
Veteran Member
micromacro's Avatar

Join Date: Jan 2014
Location: Florida
Photos: Gallery
Posts: 3,722
Lightroom editing, what am I doing wrong?

Here is the picture I edited as usual, but after saving it in jpeg (from DNG) it looks terrible, like low quality. Any suggestions? What am I doing wrong? It's cropped from 7360 x 4912 to 6248 x 3055,
Converted to jpeg, quality 93, resized by long edge to 1090, resolution 72. Sharpen for the screen, amount low. Looks "pixelated" from my screen, at right upper side, on flickr, and on facebook.





02-25-2017, 01:56 PM - 1 Like   #2
Veteran Member




Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Far North Qld
Posts: 3,301
Flickr and in particular Facebook re-compress your photos. Never judge their representations as true to your upload.
02-25-2017, 01:57 PM   #3
Veteran Member
Na Horuk's Avatar

Join Date: Feb 2012
Location: Slovenia, probably
Photos: Gallery | Albums
Posts: 11,186
What is the problem? The posterization?

here are some things to fix first:
a) Use the same Color space in camera, in software, and on export. Usually sRGB is the best for internet usage
b) Make sure the software you use to PP is set to use a good bit depth. 16bit, not 8bit
c) Keep in mind that websites like Flickr do their own PP on photos. They resize, recompress, sometimes even change color space, colours, and so on. You should export photos so they fit the website criteria as much as possible, so that the website doesn't ruin it. I don't use Flickr, but I assume you should upload photos to Flickr at 100 quality (no compression), max size (no resizing. You can check online to find what settings to use to get the least degradation for the website you are uploading to.

Oh, and one more thing. If the photo has really low amount of data, very little contrast.. and you do a lot of PP, things like posterization become unavoidable. You can blur them by hand (use a brush, mask). Its just that you are working with finite data and there is only so much PP you can do before the flaws, noise, lack of data get magnified so much that they make the image look bad.
02-25-2017, 02:14 PM   #4
Tas
Site Supporter
Site Supporter




Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: Brisbane, QLD
Photos: Gallery | Albums
Posts: 2,202
G'day,

As mentioned there is posterisation that can be seen with the appearance of banding in the sky on the right and between the light sources on the left. Compression will enhance this as already mentioned. This image will have multiple iterations of processing, the camera, LR import, your PP and whatever Flickr does. With an image like this subtlety is the key and I'd suggest as much as possible you avoid global (whole image) processing like sharpening and target sharpening/clarity etc using the bush tool. This will minimise/avoid the effect PP has on the areas that are mostly diffused light.

I'd also suggest you use the cloning tool to remove the dust bunnies.

Tas

02-25-2017, 02:39 PM   #5
Veteran Member
micromacro's Avatar

Join Date: Jan 2014
Location: Florida
Photos: Gallery
Posts: 3,722
Original Poster
QuoteOriginally posted by Tas Quote
I'd also suggest you use the cloning tool to remove the dust bunnies.
I missed the sensor spot, it's new from today

---------- Post added 02-25-17 at 02:43 PM ----------

QuoteOriginally posted by Na Horuk Quote
a) Use the same Color space in camera, in software, and on export. Usually sRGB is the best for internet usage
b) Make sure the software you use to PP is set to use a good bit depth. 16bit, not 8bit
c) Keep in mind that websites like Flickr do their own PP on photos.
a) I do.
b) It is, 16 bit
c) Probably that.

Also, yes, as Tas mentioned, I have to be careful with this kind of images. I did sharpen it in LR, then sharpen for the screen while converting.
02-25-2017, 02:53 PM   #6
Veteran Member
MadMathMind's Avatar

Join Date: Dec 2013
Location: Houston, TX
Photos: Gallery
Posts: 1,717
QuoteOriginally posted by Steve.Ledger Quote
Flickr and in particular Facebook re-compress your photos. Never judge their representations as true to your upload.
Flickr does not. Facebook does, badly. Nothing ever looks good on there.
02-25-2017, 03:40 PM   #7
Veteran Member
micromacro's Avatar

Join Date: Jan 2014
Location: Florida
Photos: Gallery
Posts: 3,722
Original Poster
Flickr is not bad. That's why I was surprised that picture looks so terrible. I guess I overdone it.

02-25-2017, 04:05 PM   #8
Site Supporter
Site Supporter
Alex645's Avatar

Join Date: May 2015
Location: Kaneohe, HI
Photos: Albums
Posts: 3,526
QuoteOriginally posted by micromacro Quote
it looks terrible, like low quality. Any suggestions? What am I doing wrong? resolution 72. Sharpen for the screen, amount low. Looks "pixelated" from my screen
Couple of suggestions. Resolution of 72 ppi is the old standard for monitors. Desktop and laptop monitors today, whether HD, retina, 4K etc. are higher resolution. Iʻd recommend at least something in the range of 150-200 ppi. Of course if youʻre going to print, youʻd want a minimum of 240, and 300-600 resolution would be ideal.

Also most software sharpening results in making the image more pixelated or ʻgrainyʻ. In your particular example, you may want to avoid sharpening it.

On PS, instead of unsharp mask, I prefer creating a duplicate layer, filter->other->high pass, set to about 3 pixels, then change the layer from normal to overlay, then merge the layer down. It creates acutance to sharpen the image with a lot less pixel/grain effect I would get from sharpening or using unsharp mask.

If you donʻt have PS, you can download Googleʻs Nik Collection for free and that suite has many excellent sharpening tools.
02-25-2017, 04:06 PM   #9
Veteran Member




Join Date: Jun 2015
Location: South West UK
Photos: Albums
Posts: 1,493
JPEG will always struggle with subtle colour gradients such as that, regardless of settings. But the combination of a slight, irrational (mathematically) resize and additional compression (not 100% quality) will make it worse. Add to that the issues most monitors have in accurately reproducing the colour depth posterization is inevitable. Probably if you re-export at 100% size and quality and get it professionally printed, it would be absent.
02-25-2017, 04:37 PM   #10
Veteran Member




Join Date: Feb 2014
Photos: Gallery | Albums
Posts: 421
For this particular image, I don't see the point of sharpening. What is there to sharpen? This scene does not benefit from sharpening.
Here are a couple of steps you can try:

1. Disable all sharpening
2. Facebook will ruin any photo, but you have a chance if you upload 2560px on the long side and jpg quality to 95.
3. Check if you have some grain added in the effects

As far as I have seen, Flickr did not do any noticeable damage to photos I uploaded. It is a photo sharing community, and it would not make sense for them to ruin photos in this way.
02-25-2017, 05:27 PM   #11
Pentaxian




Join Date: May 2016
Photos: Albums
Posts: 1,990
QuoteOriginally posted by Alex645 Quote
Couple of suggestions. Resolution of 72 ppi is the old standard for monitors. Desktop and laptop monitors today, whether HD, retina, 4K etc. are higher resolution. Iʻd recommend at least something in the range of 150-200 ppi. Of course if youʻre going to print, youʻd want a minimum of 240, and 300-600 resolution would be ideal.
This shouldn't be the problem here; he has it resized to the number of pixels he wanted, the ppi isn't really involved with that.
02-25-2017, 06:01 PM   #12
Veteran Member
micromacro's Avatar

Join Date: Jan 2014
Location: Florida
Photos: Gallery
Posts: 3,722
Original Poster
Here is unedited, just converted in LR to jpeg, still 1090p, 200 ppi, no sharpening while converting.

02-25-2017, 06:02 PM   #13
Site Supporter
Site Supporter
Alex645's Avatar

Join Date: May 2015
Location: Kaneohe, HI
Photos: Albums
Posts: 3,526
QuoteOriginally posted by leekil Quote
This shouldn't be the problem here; he has it resized to the number of pixels he wanted, the ppi isn't really involved with that.
Until Lana tries multiple factors, she wonʻt know how to reduce or eliminate the problem. I respectfully disagree and believe this could be one of the potential causes.
02-25-2017, 06:13 PM   #14
Veteran Member
micromacro's Avatar

Join Date: Jan 2014
Location: Florida
Photos: Gallery
Posts: 3,722
Original Poster
I'm thinking if the weather itself can be responsible for posterization? Fog was heavy, with dew. It also interesting direction of light, like it was breeze in that direction. Here is another angle of that location, taken with wide angle instead of 70mm.

02-25-2017, 06:36 PM   #15
mee
Veteran Member




Join Date: May 2010
Posts: 7,403
QuoteOriginally posted by micromacro Quote
Here is unedited, just converted in LR to jpeg, still 1090p, 200 ppi, no sharpening while converting.
If you weren't aware (and care) there is a spec of dust on your lens in the shot... down a bit from the top left corner.
Reply

Bookmarks
  • Submit Thread to Facebook Facebook
  • Submit Thread to Twitter Twitter
  • Submit Thread to Digg Digg
Tags - Make this thread easier to find by adding keywords to it!
bit, colors, dng, ettr, f18, files, gradient, image, images, iso, jpeg, jpg, k-1, lr, noise, photography, photoshop, pixel, pp, quality, screen, shift, software, tiff
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search


Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
What am I doing wrong? Snydly Pentax K-1 & K-1 II 14 11-12-2016 11:45 AM
Astrotracer shows trails, what am I doing wrong? realitarian Photographic Technique 107 06-06-2016 08:59 AM
Monitor calibration: What am I doing wrong? r0ckstarr Digital Processing, Software, and Printing 9 04-27-2016 07:56 AM
What am I doing wrong? Jekka_May Pentax K-r 15 02-19-2016 06:18 PM
What am I doing wrong?? sureshgvv Photo Critique 14 06-27-2008 06:09 AM



All times are GMT -7. The time now is 07:19 AM. | See also: NikonForums.com, CanonForums.com part of our network of photo forums!
  • Red (Default)
  • Green
  • Gray
  • Dark
  • Dark Yellow
  • Dark Blue
  • Old Red
  • Old Green
  • Old Gray
  • Dial-Up Style
Hello! It's great to see you back on the forum! Have you considered joining the community?
register
Creating a FREE ACCOUNT takes under a minute, removes ads, and lets you post! [Dismiss]
Top