Luminous Landscape Forum

Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Digital Image Processing => Topic started by: dsyroi on April 17, 2007, 01:50:46 am

Title: Stairstepping
Post by: dsyroi on April 17, 2007, 01:50:46 am

I've always assumed that "stairstepping" on diagonal lines in images is simply due to the lens outresolving the sensor, but just wanted verification of this. Also appreciated would be any input on how to best minimize this artifact (other than buy crappier lenses). Do some raw converters deal with this better than others? I use a D200 and ACR. Thanks.

Title: Stairstepping
Post by: Monito on April 17, 2007, 05:38:04 am

Stairstepping, affectionately called the jaggies, is an artifact of a weak anti-aliasing filter.  It is not a result of the converter.

The reason why one converter or another may have different performance with respect to jaggies is if there are differing degrees of capture sharpening hidden in the the defaults or in the applied Picture Styles, which to not always report the sharpening they add to the conversion.

Strict attention to jaggies is one way of checking the converter default settings.