Weird lens aberration (rings) showing up, any ideas on how to edit this out?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Heather Ennis
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Heather Ennis

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Hi guys,

I edited a pic from last year with google silver efex pro 2. I love the result except that now it's showing up a weird lens aberration. You'll see in the attached pic - basically lens rings are showing up. These weren't showing before the silver efex were used. I guess the high shadow ratio has brought them up. I've tried editing the pic in lightroom to get the high clarity, dark shadows, but it isn't a patch on the silver efex one. I took this pic outside, not through a window, so no idea why these lens rings are showing up - any ideas?

Please let me know if you have any ideas on how to edit this out. The software I use: Lightroom, Gimp 2.8, Google Nix Efex.

Thanks :-)
 
OK, I'm trying to post a link to the pic and am not allowed to post until I have three posts...so excuse this while bump my posts for a few seconds....new here :whistle:;)
 
and another one....sorry.

OK, I'm trying to post a link to the pic and am not allowed to post until I have three posts...so excuse this while bump my posts for a few seconds....new here :whistle:;)
 
newbie question here, but I couldn't see a way of attaching the pic other than by url...any way to embed it in the post? o_O thanks
 
Heather Ennis said:
newbie question here, but I couldn't see a way of attaching the pic other than by url...any way to embed it in the post? o_O thanks
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Use the upload a file button. It's in between the post reply and more options buttons.
Welcome to TP by the way. :)
 
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Another welcome :)

I am curious as I have never seen that sort of effect before (I use silver Efex occasionally). Silver efex does allow to you really boost contrast so it is easy to get a contouring affect but I have never seen it look like rings like that before.

What lens were you using and did you have a filter on the lens?
 
I'm no processing guru, but that looks like the kind of artifacts I used to get when editing a Jpeg file beyond what it was capable of rendering.
I can see why you would describe it as lens aberrations but I'm not sure it is lens based. Is the original file a Jpeg and is the effect apparent pre-editing? If not at what point in the editing process does it become evident?
Nice pic though.
 
Thanks for the warm welcome guys :):):)

OK, I just checked the original. It was a jpg. Normally I'd shoot raw, but I'd flown to Scotland and didn't have space for my laptop, so no way of emptying my cards, so resorted to jpgs to save space. MUST invest in some BIIIIGGGGER cards, I know :facepalm:. I'll easily take over a 1000 pics when traveling. :rolleyes:

No aberrations in original file. I used a Nikon 18-105mm lens, and use it a lot outdoors and have never had this problem before or since. So yeah, perhaps I've pushed the file too far. I might try re-editing it with a selective brush. Shame Nic efex doesn't allow that, I'll have to try other software :(. I've used nic silver efex on some other files from that lens and not had this problem, so guess it is just a file issue. Strange one though!???
 
Having just looked at the original in LR again, if I push the contrast and shadows to max to see what happens, the rings re-appear. The only thing I can think off is that I used a graduated ND filter, so perhaps there was some reflection off of that causing the lens rings to appear!? I use slide on ND filters rather than lens ones.
 
Heather Ennis said:
Having just looked at the original in LR again, if I push the contrast and shadows to max to see what happens, the rings re-appear. The only thing I can think off is that I used a graduated ND filter, so perhaps there was some reflection off of that causing the lens rings to appear!? I use slide on ND filters rather than lens ones.
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Ah, this is why I asked if you had a filter on the lens. The affect looks a bit like a diffraction pattern which I believe can happen with filters.
 
brman said:
Ah, this is why I asked if you had a filter on the lens. The affect looks a bit like a diffraction pattern which I believe can happen with filters.
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Hmmm, I think I also need to invest in a better ND filter solution. Bummer! This is going to be an expensive month. :eek::eek::eek: My current ones are looking rather too used, so time to upgrade anyway.
 
Personally I don't think its anything to do with your lens of filters, I suspect its purely a processing issue. Take a few Jpeg test shots with a cloudy sky without any filters and a variety of lenses (if you have them), then push the sliders as far as they will go in your processing software and see if the effect re-appears.
 
Graham W said:
Personally I don't think its anything to do with your lens of filters, I suspect its purely a processing issue. Take a few Jpeg test shots with a cloudy sky without any filters and a variety of lenses (if you have them), then push the sliders as far as they will go in your processing software and see if the effect re-appears.
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I'll take some test shots this week and report back.
 
Graham W said:
Personally I don't think its anything to do with your lens of filters, I suspect its purely a processing issue. Take a few Jpeg test shots with a cloudy sky without any filters and a variety of lenses (if you have them), then push the sliders as far as they will go in your processing software and see if the effect re-appears.
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While I do think it could be filter related, I agree - test it first to make sure!

fwiw, if it is to do with the filters it could be a simple thing like reflections. A couple of things you can do there
1) make sure the filter is in the nearest slot to the lens so there is less chance of reflections behind it. (you can even cover up the gap with a bit of cloth to be really sure.
2) use a black marker pen to make the edges of the filter opaque so there is no chance of light getting in there. By edges, I mean the sides/top/bottom, not the faces the light normally goes through.

I could be on completely the wrong track though, I associate this sort of fresnel ring affect with reflections and diffraction but if Graham has seen them due to jpg artifacts he probably knows more than me ;)
 
It's just jpg banding caused by over-stretching a compressed jpg file, I would suggest the reason it is oval is due to Nik applying a radial filter to it to produce a vignette effect.

In fact I see Silver FX b****r up lots of pictures by over-zealous use of clarity/contrast/etc.
 
Nawty said:
It's just jpg banding caused by over-stretching a compressed jpg fil
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My only reason for querying that is that I would expect that sort of banding to be a stepped, light, dark, darker etc sort of affect rather than the light/dark/light/dark bands.
But then I rarely do any extreme edits on jpegs so I suspect I just haven't see this type before.
Nawty said:
I would suggest the reason it is oval is due to Nik applying a radial filter to it to produce a vignette effect.
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That is a good point.
Nawty said:
In fact I see Silver FX b****r up lots of pictures by over-zealous use of clarity/contrast/etc.
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#
Definitely can't argue there! I have only recently started using it (since it became free) and alternate between loving and hating it. I do find it hard to do subtle B&W edits with it.
 
Thanks for all the replies and ideas, it's been very useful!

I've had a play through LR, as I remembered I had some shots from last week, with that lens, with and w/o ND filter and from Raw and Jpg formats.

Pushing up all the clarity, shadows, contrast and black sliders to mimic what might have happened in silver efex doesn't seem to have an effect, regardless of picture format, ND filter and so on. But, once I've done this and then add in a really high strength vignette then these weird rings start to appear in otherwise healthy looking photos. So I guess it may come down to over-processing. So, back to the drawing board with that original image, and no vignetting :rolleyes: or other over-processing.

Toby, I agree with you on keeping the ND filter as close to the lens as possible. I'll need to try what you mention, and take along a dark cloth to cover up the edges, I think that could be very useful to stop any leakage and reflections. Thanks.​
 
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Nawty said:
It's just jpg banding caused by over-stretching a compressed jpg file, I would suggest the reason it is oval is due to Nik applying a radial filter to it to produce a vignette effect.

In fact I see Silver FX b****r up lots of pictures by over-zealous use of clarity/contrast/etc.
Click to expand...

It's a slightly odd one - this banding effect is most commonly seen on plain studio backgrounds or plain skies, and isn't normally alternating light and dark. I still think it's down to processing, though. It could be that processing is just bringing out a filter issue. If you push clarity and contrast to an extreme do you start to see it then? If so I'd suspect the filter. If no matter what else you do it only appears with the vignette then I'd say it was a pure processing issue.

Things which exacerbate it:
  • processing jpegs
  • working with 8 bit rather than 16 bit images
  • boosting overall contrast or local contrast (clarity)
  • adding gradients
  • curves & levels manipulations
Usually in a studio shot adding a little bit of noise (or grain effect) makes the banding vanish but I doubt that'll work here.
 
juggler said:
It's a slightly odd one - this banding effect is most commonly seen on plain studio backgrounds or plain skies, and isn't normally alternating light and dark. I still think it's down to processing, though. It could be that processing is just bringing out a filter issue. If you push clarity and contrast to an extreme do you start to see it then? If so I'd suspect the filter. If no matter what else you do it only appears with the vignette then I'd say it was a pure processing issue.

Things which exacerbate it:
  • processing jpegs
  • working with 8 bit rather than 16 bit images
  • boosting overall contrast or local contrast (clarity)
  • adding gradients
  • curves & levels manipulations
Usually in a studio shot adding a little bit of noise (or grain effect) makes the banding vanish but I doubt that'll work here.
Click to expand...


In this photo's case I think there was a little bit of reflection going on, but with others even when nothing is showing to start with, then it does show up when contrast and clarity are pushed to the limits, then with the heavy vignette added in for insult. But in those latter photos it didn't then show up as clearly defined circular rings, but as random rings.

I'm not sure what bit level nic efex works with, I'll have to check this. I know that gimp uses 8 bit, but I hadn't used gimp, levels and gradients on that pic. But, these heavy processing presets that nic efex uses probably also has lots of stuff going on in the background.

I'll try adding a bit of grain to that original pic, and re-edit it in other software, leaving off the vignette. Thanks for your feedback, that's really useful stuff to know.
 
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Select the sky (roughly) add some feather to soften the edge and add some gausine blur (not much) it's mostly noticable in the sky, a bit of blur will hide it fairly well.
 
Are you editing the Jpegs because although I shoot in Jpeg I always convert to 16 Bit TIFF files for any editing.

But as Wayne said you could try blurring the area but the only problem with that is that you then have to blur the whole sky or it may look odd.

And blurring can also re-introduce the banding in another area.
 
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