Dark (sky) Edges around white buildings Capture NX2 issue?

[drjdmm]

I shoot with Nikon D3 and generally do raw converting in NX2 - I find it much quicker than ACR (which I also really like) once you get used to all the features I just can't correct images as fast in camera raw. Often using Nik tools during the raw processing with NX2 since you can no longer use the Nik plug in 64bit Photoshop,  I still find it difficult to get all I want out of my images with Adobe capture raw so I keep returning to Capture NX2 which I admit has it's issues, but I digress.

 I have noticed that the blue sky is often has a  darker edge around bright white buildings.

 Recently shooting the white buildings in Santorini against a deep blue sky with a  Nikon 24mm tilt shift lens the sky around the buildings was dramatically darker and quite frankly irritating. The problem was aggravated by improving  the contrast.

The darkening effect was much more subtle when processed in  CS5 camera raw, but the color of the sky was just not as  accurate and the images just don't seem to "pop" in camera raw.

 The images were fixed in photoshop by  masking the buildings and using the clone tool to smooth out the sky, but time consuming.

 Has anyone else found this issue with Capture NX2 or solution to the problem, or is this a camera/lens/sensor  issue?


drjdmm
www.drjmphotography.com

[jfwfoto]

I would love to be back in Santorini but on to your difficulty. The sky darkens because you are (a) stopping down for bright building (b) shifting up puts you in the darker sky above (c) wide angle puts you in the darker sky above (d) lens falloff darkens the upper part of the image when shifting up and (e) incredible deep blue sky in Santorini tends to underexpose which normally looks good but magnifies the first 4 conditions. In camera raw I would go to HSL panel and increase blue luminance to lighten sky. On location I would move around to the side light so I could open up more and also get some interesting shadows or shoot late in the day when the light is less intense. To test my theory shoot the same subject with the 24 shifted up and also with a longer lens from further away. If your problem is reduced with the longer lens then my theory is accurate.

[PeterAit]

He said the edge of the sky (adjacent to the building) is darker, not the whole sky, and your explanation would not apply.

Is the sky edge really darker (as by looking at measured pixel values)? If not, perhaps it is a perceptual effect (visual illusion). It's long known that adjacent light and dark areas affect the perception (for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_illusion).

But, if the pixel values are actually different, I have no explanation to offer.

[jfwfoto]

I suspected the perceptual effect and thought that making the blue lighter would reduce the effect. I also believe that some of our processing tools use auto masking and the blurred edge of the mask on a bright area bleeds over to the dark side and creates a dark halo effect. Backing off the strength of the process will make this less noticeable. Perhaps he is using that regions feature in NX2 to control the white buildings and the mask is bleeding into the sky. He did not mention using such things however.

[dudu307]

I've seen this in the past with Capture NX, it's a D-lighting problem. Just uncheck d-lighting and the halo will disappear.

We had a discussion in a spanish forum some time ago... This is an example processed with NX (left) and Camera Raw 4.x (right).



Here is the thread (if you can read spanish):

http://www.ojodigital.com/foro/software/289366-un-favor-y-un-pequeno-reto-con-raws.html

Regards

[drjdmm]

I finally had a chance to go back and rework the Santorini images and you are correct it is a D-lighting issue.  I also noticed that the same thing happened when  I used the Shadow Protection on these images. Hopefully Nik Software will look at this when they finally come out with a 64 bit Capture NX.
 
thank you so much for your help
drjdmm