Much of my outdoor work involves taking a relatively flat scene and increasing Levels and color saturation. Often, for example with blue skies, I see the darker blues begin to “clump” with inadequate transition to the lighter blues. Blurring seems like a clumsy fix. Any tips on achieving smoother gradation?
I’m guessing you’re seeing some sort of posterization or banding due to bit depth and color channel. The blue channel data gets hurt by this most often…
Fixes can include dithering or adding noise to the region in order to lessen the impact of banding…
What is it about blurring or smoothing that you find suboptimal? Seems like a good solution to me.
Sorry Morgan, I’ll put together a visual representation.
First link is a vertical slice from a very noisy iPhone TIF. Right side version more representative of my question; it is after despeckle and selective gaussian blur.
vertical slice
Next link is full image, due to be replaced when I can generate a cleaner version …
full image
What it needs is much, much, much greater radius blur.
The blur you applied is only enough to round out the dithering, whereas you need the blur to exceed the spatial extent of each step in order to hide the steps.
Changing the radius from 5 to 20 seems to do that. I’ll have to tinker with steps following the blur to figure out how it will effect my sharpening etc.
You might do better if you apply a gradient with layers and darken the sky high up that way. It might need some brush work and more than one layer. In other words get clouds etc right and then another for the sky done with a gradient.
John
@okieman Adding noise and (or) blur to sky as suggested above can help a lot:
Here with adding “spread” noise (in GIMP: Filter - noise - spread) and blur on sky layer.
John, the version now on DeviantArt uses just such a blend/gradient. Also a mixture of despeckle and selective gaussian blur.
Boris, I hadn’t even looked at the spread option. I will do so!
And Mica, a delayed reply: In the early days of photography, proponents were trying to explain it to the public. Since images until then had been created by the human hand, the proponents explained that in photography, the light itself draws the image. Accurate and illustrative wording. It’s also how I would prefer most of my photographs be built. Even if I alter saturation or contrast, the original scene should be a guide for alteration. Many software tools offer the ability to add features that Nature never would have added. So there’s some risk of results that look fake. In this example image, my equipment was so primitive that solving the problems means I now have a photo that–on close inspection–looks somewhat like an impressionist painting. There’s a message here about accepting imperfection, right?
I think the message is that if you want a great image, start with great input. The iPhone camera is getting better all the time and I’ve seen some good images from it, but it won’t hold its weight against a tool dedicated to the job.
I just started using Open Camera on my Nexus 5x, which gives me DNG output; I’m excited to have raw in my pocket, but I’m always disappointed with it when I get it on my computer to edit. DNG is better than the JPEG, but overall it still leaves a lot to be desired.
Yes, great input! Saving my pennies for a better camera than the Canon 400D to which I now have access.
Nikon seem to be winning in the dynamic range area which has an influence on the problem you are having with this shot. From when if used is bought I’m not sure but Canon did a brand new sensor to try and answer the challenge for the 80D. I suspect that the clue with which Nikon is to look in the manuals for active d light. I’m not sure if all models have 14 bit d to a but they mention that in the manuals too.
If you want to stay smallish M 4/3 is an interesting area. Many buy Panasonic but I am an Olympus man. Two used cameras that stand out are the E-PL1 and the Mk1 EM5, The EM5 is a jump from the other one but the E-PL1 is very usable. Not sure about the MK2 EM5 as I doubt if Olympus would want to offer as good a sensor in it as the E-M1. Shhhhhhhhhhhh there isn’t much in it. The E-PL1 is way way better than the E-P1 but even that is usable in decent conditions. There are instructions about on the web concerning getting shutter counts out of these cameras. The 14-42mm kit lens they supply is actually a very good lens. All of the cheaper lenses for them are pretty good really. They have some neat tricks such as being able to see clipping in the viewfinder.Useful for skies. Not sure what Panasonic offer in that line. When buying I think it’s always a good idea to look through the manuals first.
Once you do change then comes more complicated PP from raw. Be warned there is a learning curve and with using the cameras too.
John
John, thanks for those good tips!
However, that only affects camera generated JPEGs. The raw files are staying the same.
I believe Nikon is buying their sensors from Sony now.
True but the fact that they can do it looks to have an effect on what the raw files can capture in terms of dynamic range.
I did say I suspect D Light is an indication of the camera having a higher usable dynamic range than ones with out it - and that applies to both jpg’s and raw otherwise they wouldn’t be able to do it.
The comments on Olympus M 4/3 are from personal experience. To try it I bought an E-P1. As I have big hands and sort of liked it but found changing settings tricky I bought and E-PL1. While the pixel count was the same it was an entirely different camera as far as the performance of that went. Focusing and every thing else as well which is what more expensive cameras usually offer. I was pretty impressed so then bought an EM-5 and later an E-M1. This all indicated to me that there are no free lunches with Olympus even when the pixel counts from one camera to another are the same. More pixels can be dubious eg Nikon 1. They offered more pixels on the more expensive cameras and they had more noise. The buying public seem to be wrapped up in more pixels. It’s hard to know when buying a new camera if it really offers any advantages.
I believe that there have been Nikon’s with Sony sensors for some time. Some with and some with Panasonic. People thought Olympus had switched too on the E-M5 but the E-M1 seems to be Panasonic. I know nothing about the Pen’s other than the ones I mentioned however did notice that they have sold some of the more recent cameras very cheaply.