Clarity/shadows + distortion correction = terrible artefacts in high contrast areas

common example (clarity and shadows +100):
without distortion correction
with distortion correction
Raw file: nycz.info/temp/castle.dng

The adhoc fix I'm using for images where it's causing problems is to paint out the problem areas with a localised adjustment brush with a very large hit of negative clarity. As most of the problem areas have been pretty small it's an easy fix, but I'd like to see the issue addressed before the final comes out as close examination has shown it up on quite a few images (reflective mike against black stage background, pier edges against a bright but cloudy sky, tree branches against the sky). I've also now set my default to having lens profile distortion off and only using it where I need it.
Edit to add: Unfortunately on the image I'm working on at the moment, it only removes it as long as clarity is set to less than 50 - I need the lens adjustment to get the horizon flat, and I want the clarity, but if I try to have both I'm getting nasty white streaks along the pylons of a pier and it shows at screen size let alone on prints or 100 per cent view. With this particular image any amount of clarity over about 15 and the profile image adjustment is producing ghastly results, visible at small sizes.
Edit again - urggggh. Manual adjustment to level horizons (beach images again) using lens correction plus clarity isn't good either. I've got rather a lot of those and basically can't use any amount of clarity or I start getting areas of light stripes along dark high contrast edges. However if i go to the crop and straighten settings, and straighten there, it's fine.
Edit again: Ok this is an app killer. Back to Lightroom 4.0 (If I can work out how!). Too many of my images are affected, and affected noticeably. What a shame as the defringing in RC2 is absolutely fantastic on long lenses, but this is affecting too much stuff.
I'm getting it on quite a few images I've done nothing to excepted converted them to LR4 - it's very clear on the before/after previews of PV2010 and PV2012. And the edges don't have to be that high contrast - I'm not sure if this screen shot shows it clearly enough but conversion gives a row of little white dashes along the green girder in the attached images Click on images to see them a bit larger- the first image shows small size before and after comparison with problem area highlighted - nothing done except change process PV2010 to PV2012; second image shows PV2012 magnified a bit. Turning off the enable profile corrections button returns image to PV2010 appearance. Removing clarity adjustment will also remove artifacting - in this case it's the clarity that is mucking things up. I can get the same artefacts with clarity on zero and the shadows pushed up above 70. Clarity gives problems at much lower settings.

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FLICKER IN HIGH CONTRAST AREAS Premiere CS5.5

Hi,
I am getting video flicker in high contrast areas of my videos. I recently posted up a discussion to get the correct sequence settings and that has worked miracles...
Here are the links to my previous discussions...
http://forums.adobe.com/message/4092910#4092910
http://forums.adobe.com/message/4102131#4102131
Now, my footage is looking great but when I play it back on a TV in DVD format, areas with detail, such as... Details on an Indian wedding dress, trees, backgrounds with distinct dark and light shades all flicker. By he way, I've slowed the footage down to 30%.
I've already read some posts...
http://forums.adobe.com/message/3889344#3889344#3889344
http://forums.adobe.com/message/3808039#3808039
I tried reading others and looking for them but didn't find the problem or resolution specifically.
I have already tried right clicking the footage, going to field options, then clicking flicker removal, but when I play it back the picture is good until the camera pans, and that's when you can see he picture jumping or jittering.
Ot sure if you need these details but here they just incase.
I use windows 7 64
Premiere CS5.5
I read about the temporal smoothing, but also read that it doesn't work in manual mode of the shadow/highlight effect.
Below are some images of my sequence and project settings + clip info

Hi Ann,
I've tried a different TV (2 different TVs) and the results are a a little less flickering but the flickering is still there. I also checked the speed and it was at 45%. I then went ahead and changed the speed duration to 25% and then did another export at 50% speed duration as well. I found that the picture was a little steadier but the flickering in high contrast areas were still the same.
I also did another export with the same settings, 'speed duration' - 45%, 25%, 50% with Flicker Removal in the field options and in the steady shots it was great but if the camera or objects were moving then the picture jumps. Would you have any more suggestions I could try?
Was 45% speeed duration then the wrong speed to choose?

Healing brush tool at lines of high contrast

I love the healing brush tool but hate how it doesn't work right in the proximity of high contrast areas. It leaves that little light or dark halo. Can anyone tell me why/how/solutions as to why it does this? I know bumping up the hardness works a little but then you might as well use the clone tool. Any thoughts?

I know bumping up the hardness works a little but then you might as well use the clone tool.
There's more to the Healing Brush than that. It blends the surrounding pixels and what you just painted together to create a seamless composition (most of the time anyway) while the Clone Stamp Tool will basically only copy/paste pixels. To get rid of the bleeding effect when using the Healing Brush you have to make a selection that would not include the areas of high contrast. You can also try using the Clone Stamp Tool set to either the Darken or Lighten blend modes to make it blend better with the rest of the composition.

How do I apply timestamp and barrel distortion correction together?

Hi guys! My first time posting a question here and I hope to get your sound advice on this editing challenge. At the moment I am using Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 and FastStone Image viewer to do some image and video editing. I am using GoPro Hero 3 HD cam to take photos at certain time interval and then combine then it into a timelapse video. The capture settings are 7mp at medium angle. I know the GoPro take pictures at 12 mp W, but as you know the GoPro is notorious for barrel distortion, so at higher settings, it's even worse.
I am tasked with both correcting barrel distortion and adding timestamp feature on my timelapse videos. I've used the FastStone Image viewer to add time stamp or Premiere CS6 to correction distortion. However, I've been unable to do both at the same time. Now I know that the CS6 has some sort of timecode feature that allows time stamp to be shown, however my time timestamp data needs to be extracted from the original meta data, whereas the timecode feature in CS6 only shows just the total length of the video, not the original date and time when data was captured. Using the FastStone allows me to show a real progression of time on data capture from beginning to end (I am working JPEG images in this case).
Now because FastStone extract the timestamp data from original images and shows them in text label format, when I tried to apply the lens correction on CS6, it would also cause distortion in the text label itself. I've tried the other way too, where I've corrected the barrel distortion in CS6 then imported the images to FastStone, but then I would lose the original metadata (the date and time of capture), FastStone is then forced to work with the modified date and time. Now usually I am working with anywhere from 1000 to 3000 images, and FastStone allows the timestamp to be added in batch conversion. It also has this feature to change time stamp to a desired or specific date and time, however, this cannot be done in a batch, but rather on individual frame or image, and thus isn't very practical when I am working with thousands of images.
So my question is if there's any way I can combine both barrel distortion and timestamp (which is using the capture data)? Thanks guys.

Thanks guys! Turns out it's CS6 is intuitive, I can just combine the two sequences into a single sequence with two different tracks with crop effect superimposed. However, it seems with the distortion correction and crop effect added, I am losing some of the details of original sequence without the distortion correction applied. What tools in CS6 can I use to get some of the clarity and vibrant colors back?

"Jumps" in Shadows/Highlight-Corrections

Hallo,
does anyone know, why the following problems occur in the Shadows/Highlights-Correction:
Sometimes - when starting from zero - and pulling the Highlights-slider to the right, there's a kind of "jump" to a brighter image at 1 %, before the shadows starts to lighten up from this brighter level at 2 % or more.
Also with some images, I cannot lower down the Highlights, no matter how much I pull the slider to the right. In other cases - analog to the Highlights-problem mentioned above - there's "jump" to a much darker level at 1 %, from which then a linear change is possible.
This happens only with some images, but I cannot detect any system behind this phenomenon. I would like to know, what's wrong with some images, to make a linear change right from 1 % possible with all images in the future .
Any help is highly welcome
Thanks!

Hallo,
thanks for the reply. I'm not very used to it, but I'll try it for the first with the following example, which shows a large "jump". If I try to correct this image in "Shadows/Higlights" and pull the Shadows-slider from zero to the right, the image jumpes to a much brighter exposure right at the start and then starts to open the shadows from this brighter expopsure and not from the version you can see below (which is displayed at zero).
Please excuse - as you see - this is my first post and I hope you can use this example anyhow.
Thanks very much!

How to disable distortion correction for micro 4/3 lens

Hello,
I have an Olympus E-P2 and Panasonic 14-45mm lens. Adobe Lightroom 3 and Photoshop CS5 appear to be performing some very heavy-handed distortion correction at the wide-end of the zoom (running the file through a different raw converter yields dramatically different results at the edges). This is without selecting any lens profile or enabling manual correction. How can I disable this?
Thanks,
Dara
P.S. Strangely, ACR 6 is not doing any correction of chromatic aberration. Given that the system is set up to try and fix distortion and vignetting automatically, it would make a lot of sense to fix CA too.

That's a solution. It doesn't however answer my question. Clearly there is some metadata tag that tells ACR what corrections to apply. Using EXIFTool, I can replace all the metadata with that from a shot with a non-correctable lens. Unfortunately, this screws up my cataloguing by replacing other things like focal length, aperture and so on. It would be nice to know the exact tag. Thanks.

Digital Camera RAW Update 5.02 breaks Sony RX100 lens distortion correction (AGAIN!)

Just like with the Digital Camera RAW Update 4.08, the latest 5.02 update breaks the Sony RX100 lens distortion correction again. I'm reverted back to 5.01 until this is fixed.
From your Time Machine backup, restore the previous versions of
/System/Library/CoreServices/RawCamera.bundle
/System/Library/CoreServices/RawCameraSupport.bundle

Yes, I noticed it too, but I wasn't certain it was 5.02 that did it as I sold my RX100 and haven't processes any files for a while. Then as part of the NR discussion here I looked at some old RX100 files, and the distortion correction now disappears. Unfortunately I can't really revert to 5.01 because I was waiting on the A7 support 5.02 brought.
Apple are aware of it, so hopefully the fix will be quick to arrive.
Andy

Distortion correction?

Hi folks
I am a new lightroom user, and I have been reading tutorials and guides for the last couple of days. As far as I can tell, Lightroom does not have the ability to correct barrel distortions (I have version 2.6). I have read about PTLens, but I dont fancy the idea of working with an additional program. I have an olympus ep-1 and my 'olympus master' software would perform distortion corrections on RAW files, but again, this requires the use of an additional program. It also didnt seem to work perfectly - ie the horizontal lines are still distorted.
I apologise for asking this question which I see has been asked before in this forum, but the older posts were from 2007 and I was wondering if anything has changed.
So, I guess my question is What is the best way to correct for barrel distortion in conjunction with lightroom 2.6 as my processing software.
Thanks in anticipation
Dale

Dale,
LR does not provide for distortion correction, even not in LR 3 Beta (a often requested feature, who knows what's coming with LR 3 GA ...).
I use PTLens as an external editor in LR to perform distortion correction. This workflow produces a TIFF image in LR upon launching the external editor, which is processed by PTLens, written back and stacked with the original RAW in LR upon return.
Even if you use Olympus Master to correct the distortion, you still would have to export the image as TIFF after the correction and reimport this TIFF into LR, as LR won't be able to interpret the RAW adjustments made by Olympus Master (this is a guess, as I don't know Olympus Master, but I assume it will not write an XMP file interpretable by LR).
So, right now, you cannot do the correction without any external edits.
Beat Gossweiler
Switzerland

Perspective/lens distortion correction

About the only thing I ever have to go out of LR2 to do is correct for perspective or for lens distortions (esp. on wide angle lenses). I know this might not be an easy thing to fit in the interface, but it'd be very useful. Especially if you can set it up to do a stored lens distortion correction for a given lens at a given focal lens (+ maybe focus distance).
-Lars

I hope y'all don't mind if I think aloud a little more here.
We've been talking about perspective correction and lens distortion correction as if they were just about the same. They aren't.
Lens distortion correction is a fairly complex warp, but one that is completely determined by the lens and focal length (please corect me if I'm wrong). The main use of it would be to correct for the lens defects, not to create an artistic effect (like CA repair). It could therefore very reasonably be done as a preparation step, as with the Olympus cameras that actually store some correction information. It would be of relatively low user value to be able to change it later, and it would be much harder to implement.
Perspective correction is most definitely a user-driven correction. Not only does LR not stand a chance of figuring out what to do automatically, there would also be many cases where you'd want to correct in one dimension but not another, correct somewhat less that 100%, or in other ways fiddle with the amount of correction. Fortunately, it is a much simpler correction, merely the application of a small transformative matrix. Unlike lens distortion correction, it doesn't turn circles into strange wobbly shapes, but merely into ovals.
Let's take a look at the local adjustments: Crop, rotate, red-eye, spot removal, graduated filter and adjustment brush.
Crop would be well-nigh impossible to mix in with lens distortion correction, another reason to have the correction applied first. With regards to perspective, it should behave more or less like it does towards rotation.
Rotation can actually be done internally using the same operations that perspective correction would, but should probably still be separate in the interface.
Red-eye and spot removal both operate on horizontal-vertical ovals (restricted ovals for spot removal). These would be awful with user-adjusted lens distortion correction, even more reason to have that be an initial step. Perspective correction would stretch them somewhat. What happens when the user makes a dust spot fix, then fixes the perspective, then attempts to adjust the dust spot fix? We end up with the same situation as with vignetting: That there are pre- and post-crop versions. This distinction would now have to extend to pre- and post- crop+rotate+perspective adjustments. Obviously, you'd also want to be able to spot remove based on the corrected image, and it'd be strange to have a tool that's bent. It may be necessary to separate out dust spot removal from "subject matter removal" (including red-eye), as dust spotting should always be before perspective correction.
Graduated filter was really the thing that convinced me that the two corrections need to be split. Applying lens distortion correction after graduated filter would lead to a bent 'horizon line', a very bad thing indeed. Fortunately, it would be fairly resistant to perspective correction, though not entirely: If the horizon does not follow the perspective correction axis, the outer lines ought to tilt together. Probably overkill, though.
We already have an example of a similar situation: Red-eye removal and rotating. Try making a red-eye correction, then rotating the picture sharply. The red-eye oval will stay in the same position, even though that moves it from where it was supposed to be. I guess graduated filters could behave similarly.
The adjustment brushes are probably the simplest: Since they're already amorphous shapes, they can "simply" be bent and distorted along with the corrections and still make as much sense afterwards. Except if you want to use them to correct lens errors, but I don't know how often you'd want to do that.
Perhaps distortion correction and pre-crop vignetting should belong together. They would certainly interact.
That's my $0.02 plus inflation.
-Lars

Lens Distortion Correction Documentation?

I have seen in some discussions that LR corrects lens distortion for some lenses and some cameras. I have not been able to find documentation that indicates what cameras and lenses are supported for this - either for LR2.3 or 3.0beta. Is that documentation available somewhere?
Thanks!
David

Well, I guess that would be why I couldn't find it. ;-)
I'll try a more specific question. Are any DSLRs supported by the distortion correction? Specifically, I'm interested in a Canon EOS 5D, and what lenses (if any) Adobe has profiled for distortion with this camera.
I am hopeful that when LR3 comes out of beta, it will have distortion correction for most or all supported cameras and lenses, and that at least some of the specifics will be documented.
Thanks!
dbr

Lens Distortion correction not working on tonemapped jpg files

I have a series of photos exported from Lightroom 2 that I HDR tonemapped in Photomatix. Unfortunately after a disk failure I do not have the original RAW files and only have the 100% jpg saved tonemapped files from photomatix.
Now that Lightroom 3 is out I wanted to try some lens distortion correction on them. I imported them and immediately noticed after enabling the lens profile corrections and choosing my lens that although chromatic arberration and vignetting works there is no effect at all with the distortion correction! Even when I slide the slider from one side to the other absolutely nothing changes.
I tried it on other raw files and it works fines. I tried it on jpgs that I have that have not been combined and tonemapped in photomatix and they work fine. It is only the jpgs created from photomatix.
Is there something about the exif data that I am not considering or any other explanation as to why the photomatix jpgs won't take any distortion correction? thanks

If it's working for other jpg's, (and I though it didn't work on jpgs, so who knows?) then it does sound like the photomatrix program is wiping out the exif information that is needed.
Did you try using a viewer to look at the exif info, both before and after, to compare? Maybe there is a setting (in photomatrix) that you are missing when you save data?
Sorry, don't know photomatrix, so just offering generic ideas in the hopes it sheds light..
Cheers!

Lens distortion corrections in Camera Raw?

Chromatic aberration, lens vignetting, post crop vignetting
are possible in Camera Raw.
Why not have access to lens distortion corrections in CR?

Maybe show us a screenshot of what you see on the system that isn't want you expect. What version of ACR are you using in each? It should be visible in the title bar of the ACR plug-in if you unmaximize it, or you can do About Plug-ins / Camera Raw in PS.
Here is the Manual tab of ACR 6.7 on Windows in CS5:

Raw Update 4.08 removes distortion correction for Sony RX100 files?

I loaded raw update 4.08 on my 27 inch iMac yesterday. A while later, I opened Aperture 3 to export some RX100 files from a family event last week to Smugmug. To my horror, as the photos loaded when I viewed them, the automatically applied lens distortion correction was removed and obviously it was worst with the wide ones. The issue also shows up in iPhoto, so it seems a general OS thing. To confirm it was indeed due to the raw update, I exported the same raw files to my MacBook Air, which I hadn't updated yet. Sure enough, Aperture loaded them with distortion correction just fine. Obviously, I won't be updating the MacBook until this issue is fixed.

TBannor wrote:
I loaded raw update 4.08 on my 27 inch iMac yesterday. A while later, I opened Aperture 3 to export some RX100 files from a family event last week to Smugmug. To my horror, as the photos loaded when I viewed them, the automatically applied lens distortion correction was removed and obviously it was worst with the wide ones. The issue also shows up in iPhoto, so it seems a general OS thing. To confirm it was indeed due to the raw update, I exported the same raw files to my MacBook Air, which I hadn't updated yet. Sure enough, Aperture loaded them with distortion correction just fine. Obviously, I won't be updating the MacBook until this issue is fixed.
This may be disappointing, but it is expected. Note that Aperture has removed nothing, however. What you are seeing is caused by using a RAW Original instead of a JPG Original.
The Apple RAW Compatibility Update is part of the OS. The RAW converter in OS X is system wide. Any program can use it. Aperture uses it.
Aperture does not, afaik, do _any_ lens correction. Lens correction must be handled by a plug-in or external editor (or done outside of Aperture).
The files you had imported and viewed prior to the most recent RAW Compatibility Update were JPGs. They were converted in-camera. The camera contains the software to correct for lens distortion when it converts the sensor data to a JPG file. Now that you can view the converted RAW files, you can see that this distortion correction is not applied. That makes sense: Aperture is doing the conversion, not your Sony camera.
So there is no issue to be fixed. If you want to use Sony's lens corrections, you have to either use the JPGs created by the camera, or convert the RAW using Sony's RAW converter (Image Data Converter v. 4). Other software may also apply lens distortioin correction (I don't know). Aperture does not.
This is a much-asked-for feature request. If you would like to see it added to Aperture, tell Apple. The only line they listen to is "Aperture➞Provide Aperture Feedback". It certainly wouldn't hurt to add your voice.
HTH.
--Kirby.

How to correct edges with high contrast?

I have been looking for a solution to edge correction for a long time. As all of you have noticed, SD and HD video camcorders are producing a "sharpening" or extra contrast in edges of high contrast. Here's a typical example (a part of a HD frame), where you can see the darker edge on the shoulders, arm and around the window frames.
My question is: does anyone know an (automated) way to correct this? An effect or a method for instance in After Effects? Please, let me know if you have a solution.

Hi again Todd,
thanks for the reply!
Well, yes that's obvious, but please, as you should have seen in the
image (small part of a HD image), the image is shot with quite low
sharpening adjustments in the camera!!!
As you also should know that this is a very usual problem, that cannot
be totally avoided in the camera. So, please let me know any better
ideas.

I've done spot healing in my images but want to change lens distortion corrections. Does it matter?

- I originally corrected all the lens distortion in my images with the default Adobe lens profile for the lens, and also done all the spot healing too. However, I now want to change the lens distortion profile to a profile that i've made instead. The Adobe default lens profile and the one that i have made give different distortion corrections (Adobe's is a bit too strong).
- Will all the spots chosen in the spot healing still be mapped correctly? i.e will the source points for the spot healing and the area i'm sampling from still be in the correct positions after adjusting for the new lens distortion?
- Does Lightroom allow for this, or do i have to re-do all the spot healing?

Hey Paul,
Well, you could just try it to find out . But the answer is: Adobe adjusts spots (and paint, and red-eye...) to accomodate lens corrections. It's one of the reasons it is recommended to leave lens corrections until last if your Lightroom is performance challenged, i.e. it takes some horsepower.. (me? I like having lens corrections done up front, despite the performance hit).
Rob

Clarity/shadows + distortion correction = terrible artefacts in high contrast areas

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