Every image I open looks pixelated!

[afecelis]

Hi guys, first post.

I'm trying to start to work with PsproX8 as it seems an interesting alternative full of features, however, I opened an image today and it shows a lot of terrible compression artifacts. The exact same image does not on other image editors:


full image here:
http://www.telardigital.com/afecelis/ps ... ifacts.jpg

Am I doing something wrong when I open the image?

thanks for any help.

Regards,
Alvaro

[Ken Berry]

I'm sorry, but frankly I cannot spot any obvious differences between the two images in the link you gave. It could be because of the grey/black nature of the image, but I don't think so. It could also be because the size of the image in the link, even at full magnification, is not sufficient to show up the defects you notice.

Is it possible to post the original to a sharing website like Dropbox so that we can download and try it at our end?

[LindaSue]

I can see it and it does look very bad.

[afecelis]

Thanks for the replies guys. Here's the original image:
http://www.telardigital.com/afecelis/pspro/test_04.png
Please do a "one step photo fix" and you'll immediately notice the artifacts inside the black box balcony (even before doing it you'll see the shadow inside with a lot of them too), however, I'm staring to think it's a Pspro window rendering issue since if I save the image and open it in another program the artifacts are not as noticeable. But then there's the doubt I think it's very important to have real feedback in the software you're using so I hope you guys can help me clarify this point.

regards,
Alvaro

[afecelis]

To discard it being a 3d render engine issue, here's a couple more images, one rendered in cycles and the other one in octane and they both show the same pixelation artifacts in psprox8:
http://www.telardigital.com/afecelis/ps ... cycles.png
http://www.telardigital.com/afecelis/ps ... octane.png

One last question, does PsproX8 support opening exr/hdr images?

regards,
Alvaro

[JoeB]

Thanks for the replies guys. Here's the original image:
http://www.telardigital.com/afecelis/pspro/test_04.png
Please do a "one step photo fix" and you'll immediately notice the artifacts inside the black box balcony (even before doing it you'll see the shadow inside with a lot of them too), however, I'm staring to think it's a Pspro window rendering issue since if I save the image and open it in another program the artifacts are not as noticeable. But then there's the doubt I think it's very important to have real feedback in the software you're using so I hope you guys can help me clarify this point.

When I do a one step photo fix with the original image I don't see unexpected artifacts, particularly in the black box area. What I see is that PSP has lightened the inside of the balcony opening and you can now see the pattern of the rectangular stone/concrete blocks that make up the building and which are visible on the outside of the building around the black area even without one step. The only unwanted artifacts I see are those caused by the sharpening feature within the one step script, and I only see that around the edges of the rectangular object at the left of the black area (object that looks like a shelving unit). And they only become really apparent (compared to the original before one step) when zooming in on the image.

[Ken Berry]

Thanks for providing the original, but again I can only say I still see no pixellation, apart from the sharpening artifacts mentioned by JoeB. And I have to enlarge pretty significantly to even see those. (24" 1920 x 1080 monitor.)

Do you get the same problem when *not* using One Step Photo Fix but instead using manually set fixes?

[brucet]

A couple of comments. (I tried to download the original image but our steam driven internet was tooooo slow).
First avoid any automatic adjustments like One Step Photo Fix. They always take a 'best guess' approach.

I can see the 'pixellation', dark areas, on my old laptop. So my GUESS is that it's not a 'pixellation' issue as such. So I'm guessing it's a gamut issue. Maybe those , like me, can see it on 'lesser' screens and those who can't see it are lucky folks with whizbang screens.

Why only in PSP? Check your settings in PSPx8 to confirm that you really are comparing like for like images. 32 bit v 64 bit. DPI/PPI resolution. Image size etc.

regards

[afecelis]

Thanks for providing the original, but again I can only say I still see no pixellation, apart from the sharpening artifacts mentioned by JoeB. And I have to enlarge pretty significantly to even see those. (24" 1920 x 1080 monitor.)

Do you get the same problem when *not* using One Step Photo Fix but instead using manually set fixes?

Yes Ken, I get artifacts by simply opening the image in PSP. If I do any kind of image editing, save the image as a separate file and open it in another program (i.e. Paint .net) I don't get the artifacts,nor if I open the original version in it. Hence my shot in the dark guessing it's a problem with PSP's window rendering engine.

@brucet: thanks for you comments and for sharing your experience. I understand your point, and thanks for also trying it out in older computers, they usually offer valuable feedback for testing purposes, but it's funny cause my monitor is not that old and the weird thing is how come the exact same image opened in another photo editing program (and in the same monitor) doesn't present these artifacts BTW, the large image I posted was converted from a 16bit exr into a 16 bit png. Some programs have detected this in the png and report they can't handle 32 bit images so they get automatically converted to 8 bits, but I also tried opening the 8bit version in PSP and it also showed the artifacts. (I was surprised PSP opened the 32bit png without issues, and that's one of the things I was looking for in it).

I'm going to check PSP's preferences to see if there's anything regarding to rendering of the software.

Thanks a lot for your valuable comments and for trying to help me out.

regards,
Alvaro

[hartpaul]

Looked at that image and the black area that you are trying to adjust.
Using the eyedropper I get values of 1 up to 10 (1,1,2 - 8,7,10) which means that there are not a lot of gradations to show, which leads to artifacts and pixellation even more so when you try and do adjustments.
So that area is essentially black and you should not expect to see much clear information in that area unless you expose for that area.

Thats where HDR would come in handy and why HDR has come to be used. Because for example a sunrise image over seashore will have too much contrast to be able to show all the details in the highlight areas and shadow areas at the same time in the same exposure. If you take one exposure for the highlights and find the shadows are blocked up and then try and process that image to bring up the shadow areas then you will get pixellation and artifacts..

[Forriner]

Just a thought: whenever anyone sees differences between PSP and 'other viewers' I suspect PSP color management (menu File\Color management). Have you looked at that? Turn it off if it's on and vice versa?

[afecelis]

@hartpaul: Thanks a lot, I understand what you're saying. Please take a look at the octane-rendered version, this one is illuminated by an hdr:
http://www.telardigital.com/afecelis/ps ... octane.png

Though light reaches and fills difficult corners in a much better way, the image still shows artifacts in PSP (less than the sunsky version, but still).

@Forriner: I also think it's something I gotta set around there, I'm going to fiddle a bit with the options to see if anything changes.

Thanks for all your replies. I'm glad this community is so supportive.
regards,

Alvaro

edit:
-As a better way to show the issue, if your internet connection allows it, try clicking on the link I posted above to open the image in the browser and check inside the black box. In a browser there are no artifacts there. Then save this same image and open it in PSP and check the same spot.

[flagpole]

It is the colour management. Just turn it off.

It's turned on on the left, off on the right.

It's important to do these thinks on the horizontal because monitors change their calibration vertically.

[flagpole]

and for those who still can't see it here it is with some more contrast.

[afecelis]

Yaaaaay! Flagpole, you're right!

Now, what are the implications of working without color management?

Thanks for all the help, off to learning more of this wonderful program.

regards,
Alvaro

Ps. And Thanks for the hi-contrasted image to show the difference