What am I doing wrong here? RAW/APERTURE/PS4 Workflow issue!

[athena_aronow]

<p>Hi, I hope I'm in the right spot here. Thanks in advance for your help. I've done a bit of research and investigating, but I don't have a lot of time to really dig too deep, so forgive me if this has already been addressed. I recently decided I had better start using RAW instead of JPEG, mainly as an experiment, and also something about it does feel more professional. Immediately upon processing of my images, I began seeing a lot of noise in my images AFTER editing. My workflow goes something like this...<br>

Upload files (RAW) to aperture 2.<br>

Edit with external editor (CS4 Photoshop) as PSD format<br>

Save files in Aperture... <br>

This is where the images look noticeably terrible! When they are saved in Aperture they have a really grainy/noisy and pixelated quality to them. I'm going to post an example where you can see it in the shirt and on the hair of the subjects. The second example is after I ran the CS4 noise reduction filter over the file. It's obviously noticeable that it makes a difference. I'm just wondering WHY the file appears to be "noise-free" in the aperture library but seemingly gets worse upon edit!? I hope I'm clear here, and once again THANK YOU for any advice!</p>

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

[waltflanagan]

<p>google moire</p>

[athena_aronow]

<p>Thanks Walt. I can hardly wrap my brain around something I understand fairly well like PS. Please don't make me learn something entirely new! :~) Any input to as to file format/RAW issues with Aperture and PS is certainly appreciated.</p>

[cabbiinc]

<p>When/how are you sharpening? At what step and what steps after sharpening do you do after that?</p>

[athena_aronow]

<p>Hi Dan, I typically sharpen last.</p>

[jacopo_brembati]

<p>Check image at 100%.<br>

May be you see aliasing artifacts from coarse downsizing.</p>

[mariosforsos]

<p>I have a question: first of all, why are you importing the files into Aperture if you're doing all the processing in PS anyway? It seems like an intermediate step you do not need (and Bridge could help you with your DAM needs anyway).</p>

<p>I'm asking this because I have the impression that somehow you're exporting the images into PS the wrong way - maybe your export settings are not what they should be. Also, you realise Aperture is designed to deal with RAW images (even if it can "handle" other formats), so any processing you do to the PS-processed image will NOT have the intended effect and MAY degrade the image rather than improve it. PS will ALWAYS export either a PSD, a TIFF or a JPEG image back into Aperture, so...</p>

<p>Hope this helps...</p>

[wogears]

<p>It's moiré. You can see it in both images, but it is more evident in the lower one.</p>

[peter_mounier]

<p>I'm wondering what kind of editing are you doing in PS that can't be done in Aperture?<br>

Aperture is great for post processing and unless you <em>have</em> to use layers, Aperture should be all you need for non-destructive editing.</p>

<p>Peter</p>

[athena_aronow]

<p>Thanks everyone. <br>

Marios- I import the images into Aperture because I am a wedding photographer and it's an awesome way to catalog large amount of images, as well as do simple batch edits. I'm pretty adept at exporting, and have never had an issue with it before. Also, PS opens the file directly out of Aperture, so it's directly program to program. I do need PS for certain actions that I use on my images.</p>

<p>Les- Thanks, So any solutions to this problem or just diagnosis?</p>

 

[wogears]

<p>Moire is tough to deal with.<br>

<a href="http://av.adobe.com/russellbrown/GoAwaySM.mov">http://av.adobe.com/russellbrown/GoAwaySM.mov</a><br /><br /></p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<p>And here's a site:</p>

<p>http://www.linuxphoto.org/html/test_demosaicing.html</p>

<p>...that will explain why you see moire in one app and not another. Scroll down to the bottom where it shows the effects from a wide range of Raw converter's algorithms applied to one Raw capture.</p>

<p>Also keep in mind how close the subject is to the camera combined with resolution and the fineness of the pattern will also affect how severe moire shows up.</p>

<p> </p>

[ethervizion]

<p>It's important to determine whether the moiré is coming from the original image (due to the limited resolution of the sensor and the high frequency pattern in the shirt and/or the demosaicing algorithm) or due to some poorly controlled resizing during processing. I would suggest taking the original raw photo in Aperture and exporting a full res JPEG, without any sharpening or other editing (i.e., whatever Aperture defaults to, and without any sharpening -- sorry, I don't know Aperture, so I can't be more specific). Next, view the JPEG at 100%. If the moiré is there, then there's not a whole lot you can do except: a) choose a different raw processing software (i.e., that uses a different demosacing algorithm); b) remove the moiré in post-processing.<br>

If the moiré does not appear in full res JPEG, then the noise is being generated during your processing. You should look at where in the process you are doing any resizing and sharpening.</p>

 

[athena_aronow]

<p>Karl, thanks- that's definitely a step in the right direction... going to work on this!</p>