Background has BAD pixelation

<p>Hello!</p>

<p>I've been having a lot of problems with my studio photos having A LOT of pixelation in the background. I keep the subject as far back from the background as I possibly can and have changed the setting of my shutter speed in hopes that would help but nothing seems to work...<br>

Please help!</p>

<p>Oh and the shots were:<br>

1/250th shutter<br>

F 8<br>

iso 100<br>

Thanks guys for all the advice! </p><div></div>

<p>Shutter speed, iso and aperture will have no effect on your problem. The position of the subject in relationship to the background will also have no effect. Pixelation is most dependent o how you process the image after you have downloaded it from the camera. Keep in mind .jpg files are compressed. If you apply too much compression to the .jpg file the image will start to pixelate. You need to save your jpg images at the highest image quality your software will allow. </p>

<p>For more detailed help we will need information on how you post process the image. Also have you set your camera to save the Raw pictures or have you set it for jpg.</p>

<p>That's a small image, so it's hard to say what you're referring to. Instead of shrinking the whole image down, leave it full size, and crop out a small piece of it at higher resolution, showing some detail. <br /><br />"Pixelation" usually means the reduction of small details into larger, square, like-colored sections. Sometimes this is caused by "banding," which is usually a compression artifact (say, from over-compressing a JPG file, or using a working environment (software-wise) with too little color depth. But that's all speculation until we can see what you're referring to.</p>

<p>If you can see pixelation in that small JPEG, something is wrong. If your monitor is calibrated the background should be too dark to make out any details. And I just copied and tweaked that JPEG to look for problems - even in that small JPEG I don't see any unusual pixelation or artifacts.</p>

<p>I think you may have the termanology wrong in describing the problem. If you could post a 100% crop showing the problem area that would help. I have a feeling you are describing noise which would show up if the image were underexposed and corrected in post. I see no pixelization in the posted image, which is a nice portrait BTW.</p>

<p>"The position of the subject in relationship to the background will also have no effect."<br>

In this case, it may, if the poster actually just means the background is too much in focus.</p>

<p>Thanks everyone for your help... <br>

To help better understand how I do my post production... here are my steps<br>

I always shoot in RAW format, this way I can take advantage of prophoto RGB in photoshop (i use cs4)<br>

When I shot this photo I tethered it to lightroom using sofortbild software.<br>

I did notice that when tethered in lightroom, as soon as the shot came up on screen lightroom would automatically change the image... like it auto toned it. Not sure how to make it not do that and is wondering if this might be whats creating this pixelation.<br>

I than edit the photos in photoshop... I don't do too much to the image. sharpening, maybe some curves (maybe a 1/2 stop difference) nothing too drastic and some vibrance.<br>

When I save the image I save it as a jpeg at it's highest quality.</p>

<p>I cropped the photo so hopefully you guys will be able to see better what I'm speaking of. <br>

Again.... thanks so much for your advice on this!!! I really need the help.</p>

<p> </p><div></div>

<p>Thanks everyone for your help... <br>

To help better understand how I do my post production... here are my steps<br>

I always shoot in RAW format, this way I can take advantage of prophoto RGB in photoshop (i use cs4)<br>

When I shot this photo I tethered it to lightroom using sofortbild software.<br>

I did notice that when tethered in lightroom, as soon as the shot came up on screen lightroom would automatically change the image... like it auto toned it. Not sure how to make it not do that and is wondering if this might be whats creating this pixelation.<br>

I than edit the photos in photoshop... I don't do too much to the image. sharpening, maybe some curves (maybe a 1/2 stop difference) nothing too drastic and some vibrance.<br>

When I save the image I save it as a jpeg at it's highest quality.</p>

<p>I cropped the photo so hopefully you guys will be able to see better what I'm speaking of. <br>

Again.... thanks so much for your advice on this!!! I really need the help.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I am not seeing any problem with the background at all.</p>

<p>The background looks pretty good to me. I can see some noise in the background, but that's not pixelization. The background is dark and underexposed so you're bound to see some noise.</p>

<p>I'm not seeing it either. I'm wondering whether you've got a monitor profile problem.</p>

<p>There are subtle gradiations in that background. If your display has insufficient color depth (like many 6-bit displays) you could just be seeing posterization on the output. What do prints look like?</p>

<p>The way I see is that the background is very dark. When Nicola tried to adjust the brightness, the software pushed up the background and created areas of different colors (pixelation?). The effect is similar to increase brightness of an underexposed picture</p>

I don't see anything wrong with those photos either. Perhaps what Nicola is using to view them on or with, severely compresses them before displaying. That would result in something like this (greatly exaggerated):<div></div>

<p>That's grain/noise, not pixelation.</p>

<p>[[i did notice that when tethered in lightroom, as soon as the shot came up on screen lightroom would automatically change the image... like it auto toned it.]]<br>

You can apply the appropriate camera profile image to your files in Lightroom:</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p><strong>With the advent of Lightroom 2.2</strong>, the revised Adobe standard profiles, and the camera matching profiles are automatically installed, and are available in the Camera Calibration panel, lower Right Hand Panel in the Develop module.<br>

http://www.lightroomforums.net/index.php?topic=1500.0</p>

</blockquote>

 

<p>Rob --- The reason an image changes in LR is because it's changing from the jpeg preview to the original raw file. It's not applying anything.</p>

<p>Of course it's applying something. You can't view a RAW file without first interpreting the data and applying a developing choice.</p>

 

<p>Correct, but the reason it changes so dramatically is because it's showing the jpeg preview until the RAW file renders.</p>

<p>Thank you for repeating back to me what I already said. </p>