Help with blotchy color!

RauschPhotography

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I know it's pretty rare that I ask for help with things, but I can't figure out what's going on.

IMG_2798.jpg


The color in the upper half of the picture is so incredibly blotchy. Actually, a majority of the picture is really blotchy... Considering this was shot at ISO 800, I can understand where there would be some issues with the color.. But from my experience, I can't really figure out why there's this much blotchiness. I've tried running noise reduction along with color noise reduction in LR3, and it doesn't seem to help with the situation. I don't want to sacrifice the vibrance in the colors, I just want this blotchy mess to be gone! Does anyone have any tips or advice to help out? Try your hand at editing it, I don't mind.. I just want to figure out how to fix it. Thanks!

(Also.. EXIF data: Camera Canon EOS 50D
Exposure 0.001 sec (1/1500)
Aperture f/4.5
Focal Length 24 mm
ISO Speed 800
Exposure Bias 0 EV
Flash Off, Did not fire
X-Resolution 240 dpi
Y-Resolution 240 dpi
Date and Time (Modified) 2011:02:06 15:18:09
Exposure Program Manual)
 
Last edited:
Could it be a DOF issue? Maybe the horizon is within the DOF, but the smoke/steam is beyond it.
 
Could it be a DOF issue? Maybe the horizon is within the DOF, but the smoke/steam is beyond it.

I'm not really sure if that would cause the sky above the smoke stream to be that blotchy.. I'm really hoping someone has an answer as to why this happened. I thought it might have been my graphics display, because I just got a new monitor and graphics card but it's happening on more than one of my computers. Any ideas to edit it or answers as to why this happened would be so great. :(
 
That looks like the type of problem you get when you down-scale the bit depth of a picture (say exporting a 14-bit RAW as a medium quality JPEG). Does it look this way in RAW format, or only after you export?
 
This is after being exported as a full quality JPEG. The original RAW does have noise issues, as well. The SOOC looks very muted, and I was really happy with what I had done with the post processing with the colors, however the noise does become more apparent as a result.

Here's the SOOC version for comparison..Hopefully it can help get some answers:
IMG_2798-2.jpg
 
Based upon how the SOOC version looks, it was your editing that introduced the noise. You say "blotch", I say "noise." Whatever software/method you used couldn't pull out enough data in that area to render the adjustments you were applying.

I took a stab at trying to achieve the same edit but not get the artifacts in the upper left.

$2011-01-08 at 18-57-41.jpg
 
Based upon how the SOOC version looks, it was your editing that introduced the noise. You say "blotch", I say "noise." Whatever software/method you used couldn't pull out enough data in that area to render the adjustments you were applying.

I took a stab at trying to achieve the same edit but not get the artifacts in the upper left.

View attachment 3227

When I meant blotchy, I more or less meant noise that made the color appear blotchy.. but yes. I did edit this picture solely in LR3, and I've never really had problems with noise reduction before, but this one really stumps me. Thanks for helping out and trying your hand at it!
 
Well... you pushed wayyyyy too hard. What you're seeing is a rough gradient in the luminosity.. basically the dark and light tones aren't blending smoothly.

You can't fix the edit really..

Here's an edit on the original I did.
z4C4B.jpg


Here's your edit pasted over your original, set to 'color' as a layer blending style.
3TTiH.jpg


Editing the RAW will be less destructive.. but it won't be perfect and you shouldn't be able to push it as far as you have without some quality loss. It wasn't really possible for me to mimic your edit without the same loss of quality & smooth gradients.
 
You pushed the original scene's color to the point of ridiculousness, and as a result, you're getting some posterization; the original color data did NOT have the type of colors you've created in post, and as a result, there is some weird blotchiness. it's a very extreme conversion...there are 'some' limits...this shot is an example of that idea. When I saw the SOOC I was shocked--I thought this might have been from one of those rare, oddball weather conditions, but when I saw what the scene really looked like, then it became pretty clear why the image was not cooperating.
 
Thanks for the information, guys... Definitely a lesson learned here. Won't be repeating this again, I assure you. :meh:
 

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