Export causing marks on images

[Pads1980]

Hi

Here are a couple of photos from the last couple of months that I have noticed suffer from a circular/arc mark on the outer edges of the photo - These are not visible in lightroom, they only appear on the exported Jpeg image.

Does anyone recognise this, or know what I am doing wrong ?
Many many other images taken on the same lens and same camera either side of these with no problem so I'm guessing it must be something I'm doing in PP ??

Not sure if its worth mentioning that I had the sensor cleaned not long before this happened for the first time, but surely if that was an issue it would show on the RAW file.

IMG_1792 by Paul, on Flickr

IMG_3527 by Paul, on Flickr

Thanks in advance for any thoughts / advice.

 

[PhilH04]

Although I cannot see anything on this device, what you describe sounds like 'compression' artefacts, these are caused by two things one being jpeg compression which throws away information particularly from areas of more or less even tone, going from a 16 bit file to an 8 bit file, 16 bit has more colour data than 8, and finally going from a large colour space to a much smaller one i.e ProPhotoRGB to sRGB. There are a few ways to combat this such as adding noise....

 

[Brian G]

Although I cannot see anything on this device, what you describe sounds like 'compression' artefacts, these are caused by two things one being jpeg compression which throws away information particularly from areas of more or less even tone, going from a 16 bit file to an 8 bit file, 16 bit has more colour data than 8, and finally going from a large colour space to a much smaller one i.e ProPhotoRGB to sRGB. There are a few ways to combat this such as adding noise....

What he said.
Both images show signs of banding which is caused by over compression of the jpeg export.
What settings are you using for your export?
There's no reason to use anything but high quality, 85 - 95, for jpeg exports, unless you need a small file size for perhaps, an email attachment.
It's commonly said that storage is cheap these days, so if you are short of disk space I would suggest you expand your storage capacity, possibly by using an external drive.
Nothing you do "in camera" will affect the quality of a jpeg export, particularly since you say the raw original looks fine in Lightroom.

 

[4wd]

Something else is wrong here, your photo on flickr is 2048 pixels, 24 bits and 1.3mb which might be on the low side but shouldn't look that bad.

 

[Pads1980]

Thanks

These are exported at 100, colour space sRBG, resolution 240 ppi, no output sharpening
File sizes are 15.8mb and 20.9mb

 

[Pads1980]

Im happy to try methods to combat this issue, but still a little surprised that similar images on the same export are not suffering this problem at all.

 

[petersmart]

I don't see circular marks but I do see striations on both sides of the image 1 and large circular striations in the sky on image 2.

They could be banding but the banding artefacts I have sometimes got are usually more sharply defined than I see on your images.

But obviously if you don't have them on the RAW files then your method of processing is causing them.

I would suggest first converting the images to 16 bit TIFF files before processing and only convert to JPEG for the final export.

See if that helps.

 

[momoka]

They almost look like reflections of the front of the lens, did you have filters atatched? Are you sure they do not show on the raw?

 

[Brian G]

I don't see circular marks but I do see striations on both sides of the image 1 and large circular striations in the sky on image 2..

Yes - that's what I see too.
What is slightly strange is that the sky in the first shot is smooth, and if it were compression artefacts, that would likely be the first place they'd show.

They could be banding but the banding artefacts I have sometimes got are usually more sharply defined than I see on your images.

But obviously if you don't have them on the RAW files then your method of processing is causing them.

I would suggest first converting the images to 16 bit TIFF files before processing and only convert to JPEG for the final export.

See if that helps.

I'd say that exporting jpeg at an Image Quality of 100 is overkill.
I normally export at 85 and the IQ is good for A3+ prints.
Were they exported as part of a batch or do you export individually?
I think you need to carefully examine your export settings and see if there are any clues there.
15+ Mb seems really large for a jpeg file, although as I said, I normally export at IQ 85.
For reference, I just exported a 30.1MB image (6720 x 4480) as an 85 quality jpeg and the file size is 6.28MB, although that was exported with On1, not Lightroom.
At IQ 100 the same image is 21.5MB file size.

 

[ancient_mariner]

I see near-circular areas of light & dark in both images, almost as though the picture were shot through a fresnel. This is not classic jpg low quality conversion artifacts, where there is a step change between different tones and shades, and looks more like rings of additive and destructive interference.

 

[GarethB]

I see very faint banding on #1, but #2 looks like weird flaring almost....I know it isn't since it isn't showing in RAW.
(My Nexus tablet is far from suitable for pixel-peeping)

As others have said, it's definitely a processing issue.

I don't use LR, I'm using older ACR and DNG converters, but I do have a couple of other free RAW processors, just in case of situations like this.
You could try with RawTherapee, a free and very capable alternative to LR....or even Canon's own RAW program....worth a shot.
More time consuming?...yes, but if you say it's a rare(ish) occurrence, could be worth investigating.

Good luck, they're certainly worth rescuing, they're very nice long exposures otherwise.

 

[Pads1980]

Thank you all for taking the time and for your advice. Interestingly, I have noticed that if I 'save to camera roll' from the lightroom app on my mobile, it creates the image without this issue.

I don't see circular marks but I do see striations on both sides of the image 1 and large circular striations in the sky on image 2.

They could be banding but the banding artefacts I have sometimes got are usually more sharply defined than I see on your images.

But obviously if you don't have them on the RAW files then your method of processing is causing them.

I would suggest first converting the images to 16 bit TIFF files before processing and only convert to JPEG for the final export.

See if that helps.

I will try this, thanks

They almost look like reflections of the front of the lens, did you have filters atatched? Are you sure they do not show on the raw?

I had a filter on the first image, but not the second, and they definitely don't show on the RAW

Yes - that's what I see too.
What is slightly strange is that the sky in the first shot is smooth, and if it were compression artefacts, that would likely be the first place they'd show.


I'd say that exporting jpeg at an Image Quality of 100 is overkill.
I normally export at 85 and the IQ is good for A3+ prints.
Were they exported as part of a batch or do you export individually?
I think you need to carefully examine your export settings and see if there are any clues there.
15+ Mb seems really large for a jpeg file, although as I said, I normally export at IQ 85.
For reference, I just exported a 30.1MB image (6720 x 4480) as an 85 quality jpeg and the file size is 6.28MB, although that was exported with On1, not Lightroom.
At IQ 100 the same image is 21.5MB file size.

Thanks for this, I have always exported at 100, never had any advice to the contrary

I see very faint banding on #1, but #2 looks like weird flaring almost....I know it isn't since it isn't showing in RAW.
(My Nexus tablet is far from suitable for pixel-peeping)

As others have said, it's definitely a processing issue.

I don't use LR, I'm using older ACR and DNG converters, but I do have a couple of other free RAW processors, just in case of situations like this.
You could try with RawTherapee, a free and very capable alternative to LR....or even Canon's own RAW program....worth a shot.
More time consuming?...yes, but if you say it's a rare(ish) occurrence, could be worth investigating.

Good luck, they're certainly worth rescuing, they're very nice long exposures otherwise.

I felt it must be something to do with the processing - just find it strange that other similar images, edited the same and exported on same batch don't suffer as well

 

[GarethB]

Indeed, very strange it doesn't show in similarly processed images.
I would be very curious to test your RAWs on my (admittedly older) processing setup.

I'm no expert, but I'd be more than happy to give it a shot.
Not sure how to go about it, but you could send me a message if you're interested....I don't know how you would send me a big RAW file though....could it be sent via email? Or would the file size be too big?

Gimme a shout if you're interested.

 

[momoka]

I would also be willing to look at a raw image for you to see what I could find.

 

[momoka]

Thank you all for taking the time and for your advice. Interestingly, I have noticed that if I 'save to camera roll' from the lightroom app on my mobile, it creates the image without this issue.

Can you clarify where you processed the images above and how you upload to Flickr?

 

[PhilH04]

I would suggest first converting the images to 16 bit TIFF files before processing

Really no point in doing that as the OP is using Lightroom he will be working on the files in a 16bit linear ProPhotoRGB colour space.

It is difficult really to identify a processing issue, particularly if it is happening only on export which does imply that the artefacts are a result of that process.

 

[petersmart]

Really no point in doing that as the OP is using Lightroom he will be working on the files in a 16bit linear ProPhotoRGB colour space.

Maybe but still worth trying in case there is some kind in unusual interaction in the colour space.

 

[Pads1980]

Can you clarify where you processed the images above and how you upload to Flickr?

These were processed on lightroom (on laptop) and exported as JPEG.
Uploaded to Flickr from the laptop and then shared here using the medium size bb code.

 

[Pads1980]

Again, thanks for all your replies.

With confirmation of my original thought that it was something I was doing in processing I have taken these images back to the original RAW and reprocessed, exporting one step at a time to see when the problem appeared.

On both of these images the problem appeared at the sharpening stage, and each of them allowed me to sharpen very little without showing this issue, whilst other similar images are absolutely fine, so still a little curious as to why this may be.

Once I knew what I was looking for I could see the problem present itself vert faintly on the RAW when heavily zoomed in, but then accentuated on export.

Anyway, the problem is solved and I thank you all for your input.

 

[Craikeybaby]

Are you sharpening in Lightroom, then also sharpening on export?

 

[ancient_mariner]

These were processed on lightroom (on laptop) and exported as JPEG.
Uploaded to Flickr from the laptop and then shared here using the medium size bb code.

How do they look if you export them to flickr at the size you want displayed here?