Author Topic: One photo looks good and not good  (Read 11758 times)

Clyde Dickens

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One photo looks good and not good
« on: June 18, 2009, 09:02:19 AM »
I need advice from members with more experience than me.

Before I upload photos I set them as desktop background to ensure that they are not blurred. On more than one occasion recently I have had photos of red ships that look OK on the desktop and on Full Size on the site, but with some halo effect when seen after first opening and on Focus on the site.

See STX Ace 5
http://www.shipspotting.com/modules/myalbum/photo.php?lid=924778

Is that an issue with my screen, or something I could control?

Thanks
Clyde

Offline Cody Williams

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Re: One photo looks good and not good
« Reply #1 on: June 18, 2009, 09:31:13 AM »
G'day Clyde,

Your picture of STX Ace 5 doesn't seem to have a halo on my screen, if its just red it would most likely be your monitor or the connection between the monitor and desktop, if you tighten up the VGA connection it should be ok.

If its a laptop, there are screws at the bottom and behind the screen, if you tighten those up it may fix the problem (I saw that done on a Dell laptop at school by an ICT technician)

Offline Glenn Towler

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Re: One photo looks good and not good
« Reply #2 on: June 18, 2009, 09:50:24 AM »
Clyde

1.    That is a brilliant shot, pitty about the tanks!!  But we can't always have it our way!!

2.     The White writing on her name up on the bow does look to have a bit of a blur to me, I did take me glasses off and made sure it was not them.  

I have found that Fire engine Red like that on the STX Ace on a sunny day is a real pain to photo along with whtie.  Unfortuanatley you have both in that shot.  I don't know what amount of fine tuning you do, buy you might find you have to tone the Brightness and Contrast down a little, that some times works.

Glenn
...

Offline Allan RO

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Re: One photo looks good and not good
« Reply #3 on: June 18, 2009, 02:03:17 PM »
Hi Clyde

I've just looked at your pic, and there seems to be a purple 'shadow' to the left of the white bits, particularly noticeable on the masts etc.   I wonder if this is some sort of chromatic aberration with your lens.   I wonder what sort of lens did you use for the pic.  ?  

Allan

Clyde Dickens

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Re: One photo looks good and not good
« Reply #4 on: June 18, 2009, 02:46:59 PM »
Thanks for the comment Allan

There is a 9 hour time difference between us and if I had not got out of bed to respond to a call of nature, I would have missed it until my tomorrow morning.

I do not have the knowledge to answer your question.  I use a Nixon P80 set to Auto. The histogram information shown by Picasa is 1/232s  Focal length : 36.9mm   f/7.1   ISO : 64

Apart from cropping I did not manipulate the image in Picasa.  It was a day with roving showers with intermittent streams of sunshine, one of which hit the ship while I took the shot.

Is it possible that the resolution of 3332 x 2231 is OK for the full screen of my desktop and the Full size of the opened site photo, but too much to give a sharp image for smaller size images displayed?

Yours
Clyde

Now I'm off to bed again

Guest

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Re: One photo looks good and not good
« Reply #5 on: June 18, 2009, 03:36:33 PM »
Hi Clyde

Just goes to show that we all see the photographs in a different light dependant on monitor size, contract and brilliance  :lol:

I can see what Allan means, there is a notable purple haze effect on the forward mast - only noticeable in the full sized shot.

Letting on the hull is clear enough and as others have said, photographing a vivid colour like red does bring its own problems.

Certainly a clear shot and not one that I would worry about but as Glen said, pity that the tanks were in shot.

Regards

Offline Gerolf Drebes

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Re: One photo looks good and not good
« Reply #6 on: June 18, 2009, 07:03:04 PM »
Hi Clyde,
it must be your screen, on my screen the phot is looking quite good.
So you can continue posting without trouble.
Regards
Gerolf
......

Offline Adawo

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Re: One photo looks good and not good
« Reply #7 on: June 18, 2009, 08:46:50 PM »
Hello

From my observations:

It's a big difference between "Full size" (witch extra click on the picture) when original picture are presented and a "regular" view when we see "compressed" and resize picture

At previous version of Shipspotting "engine" compression was less visible then now.

The compression of this "engine" effect a more blurred and less sharpened view, especially when we compare it with "full size" picture.

The compression effects is much more visible on older monitors, then on new, bigger ones.

Advice:
At any occasion use "Full size" view, with extra click on the picture.

Clyde Dickens

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Re: One photo looks good and not good
« Reply #8 on: June 18, 2009, 09:15:06 PM »
Thank you All

Clyde

PS.  I believe that the tanks in the foreground are quite appropriate and relevant in a photo of a tanker unloading at a refinery terminal.  Very little of the ship outline is covered.  But that raises a sensitive issue doesn't it?  Is it good photography to include "locating scenery" items in the composition while ensuring that the vessel almost fills the frame and dominates the image?  In this case I had no option - I was perched on top of a kitchen ladder in the high part of a divided road above the terminal.

Offline Joy Loughnan

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Re: One photo looks good and not good
« Reply #9 on: June 19, 2009, 08:30:14 AM »
If I'm not using manual settings I set mine to "natural light", I find it shows the real colours a lot better than any "auto" setting.

Joy

Offline David Jackson

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Re: One photo looks good and not good
« Reply #10 on: July 19, 2009, 06:08:58 PM »
Steve mentioned the purple effect- I believe this is the dreaded Purple Fringing.
Look closely at other parts of the photo you will see it is in many places, look at the trees and the edge of the wall.
Technically it is called Chromatic Aberration (scuse spelling) and (please look it up on the net) it happens with many, possibly all lenses to an extent. I had several Fuji Finepix models which did it in almost every shot taken in sunshine, although great cameras otherwise. It does not occur with any of my Nikon lenses perhaps not a problem with most digital SLR combinations. Dont know what camera Clyde uses. I concluded there was nothing you could do, it is to do with internal lens alignment reacting to light although if you can experiment with the angle you take shots being especiallly watchful if the sun is behind you.

Offline Peter Karberg

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Re: One photo looks good and not good
« Reply #11 on: October 22, 2009, 02:03:44 AM »
Hi Clyde
 
I understand your frustration. I don't know much about Nikons. I have had a similar problem with my Pentax K200d when using my old Pentax lenses from my film camera. This has prompted me to buy a new Pentax zoom lens more compatible to the K200d. The difference is 100 per cent!
 
In bright light situations with the old lenses it affected the white areas like the accomodations and some of the edges of the subject like the stern with a bright sky behind it which caused a fuzz or bleeding along the edge. I sometimes get it with my compact as well. It annoyed me enough to buy the new lens.

By the way the photo looks great. The sun highlights the ship against the darker background.

Regards

Peter

Offline Anton Heuff

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Re: One photo looks good and not good
« Reply #12 on: October 22, 2009, 11:07:12 AM »
Hello Clyde and company,

The "blurr" is the effect of JPEG compression. Compression is equal to corruption when JPEG touches deep red colours, and that's what happened with the STX Ace 5. The presentation picture actually is a downsized (800x557 pix ) copy. I found out that it is compressed to a ridiculous 54,5 kB (the same copy is used for the superfluous "Focus" presentation). I downloaded the original and reduced it myself to 800x557 pix. With my usual JPEG compression this yielded an 98,3 kB file, with less artefacts and improved sharpness.  With still less compression and a 175 kB file the result is quite acceptable. I don't use Photoshop, so I can't give you the settings I used with this experiment.

It's clear that this recently-installed prgramme squeezes the juice out of any picture when the JPEG compression is set at "highest", which I think it is. That's a shame, because it's the first impression that counts. Please, do away with this programme, which I hated from the onset.

I detected two artefacts also seen by others which have to do with cameras and lenses. Chromatic aberration is best seen in the top left corner around the letters UTS. It has to do with the phenomenon that different frequencies (colours) of the "white" sunlight are broken under different angles when they hit the glass surface. You can observe this with any cheap magnifying glass. Lens makers have overcome this problem long ago,  so chromatic aberration is now usually associated with "digital". Not really, but with the advent of digital SLR cameras it seems that zoom lenses have become "standard", and a zoom lens is still a package of contradictions and compromises. I'm amazed what these light-weight zooms can do, but they can't beat a fixed-focus lens.

The "halo" phenomenon as seen around the foremast is probably a shortcoming of the sensor of the camera. In the early digital cameras this was a nasty artefact, called "blooming". It seemed that the picture elements of the sensor could be overloaded with information, spilling the overflow to its neigbours. This could be the cause of the yellow band in the foremast and the purple around the tank here. Chromatic (lens) aberration typically occurs in the corners of a picture, and I know it only as a shift in the red and green areas, so it may be the sensor. Photoshop now offers "Lens corrections". Chromatic aberration is tackled with red/cyan and blue/yellow colour slides. It's worth a try to see what it does with purple and yellow "blooming". I understand that this only works with RAW files, but this may be a false impression.

Good luck!

Anton

I now see that Nikon's editing tool Capture NX features a Color Aberration Control. It also works with JPEG and TIFF files.
[color=000000]Anton Heuff[/color]

Offline Ship's Cat

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Re: One photo looks good and not good
« Reply #13 on: November 20, 2009, 04:22:18 PM »
Quote

Ellwood wrote:
Hi ClydeJust goes to show that we all see the photographs in a different light dependant on monitor size, contract and brilliance  


I agree. I use a wide screen laptop which has a shiny screen. Most photos look excellent on the screen, as they do on other machines - desktop or laptop - which have shiny screens. However, if I use another computer which has a matte screen photos often look awful (espoecially mine!  :-D ).
It's a long time since I have used a cathode ray tube monitor, so I can't remember what photos look like on these but as CRTs are going the way of the dinosaurs that doesn't matter too much.

Does anyone else agree with me re. shiny screens vs matte screens?

 

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