Peculiar edge effect - WB-related - unique to LR?

[thriddle]

Apologies if this is some well-known chestnut, but my attempts to trawl the internet for other examples of this problem have met without success.

The attached are 100% crops of two pictures taken on a Pentax K10D (using DNG) processed in LR4 (upgrades to both under consideration!). Both were taken on a tripod, using a manual 28mm lens at f/8. One is a night-time shot (8 s), the other in strong light (1/250), so both in quite contrasty situations, but otherwise they have little in common. Both exhibit the same orange fringing effect where either a building meets the sky or a rock meets the water. This seems to be related to WB, in that the effect gets larger or smaller as I choose different values of Temperature, and sometimes the "right" Temp/Tint combo will make it disappear altogether. Unfortunately it's not generally the one I would like!

What really piqued my interest was when I discovered that my trial version of DxO Optics Pro 10 completely fails to reproduce this problem no matter how I torture the settings. If I export DNGs from DxO, however, LR4 can still produce the effect on them, probably because colour changes aren't passed on when you export a DNG. Exported TIFFs naturally remain immune.

Does anyone have any idea what's going here? Thanks for any insights!

David

Edit: just to add, no sharpening in the daylight one, and Clarity at zero, not much alteration of Shadows and Highlights either (+/-19)

[Ann JS]

It looks, to me, like Chromatic Aberration exacerbated by extreme HL and Shadows correction and USM Sharpening.

A newer version of your software would definitely help.

[thriddle]

It looks, to me, like Chromatic Aberration exacerbated by extreme HL and Shadows correction and USM Sharpening.

A newer version of your software would definitely help.

Hi Ann, thanks for your thoughts. Although the night-time one has some rather extreme processing going on (I was experimenting with some boundaries!), the daytime shot emphatically does not. No sharpening of any kind, no Clarity, only WB and a little opening of the shadows (+19) and reduction of highlights (-19). Original post edited to make that clear. I have spent quite some time playing with the various variables in LR and it seems WB is all that really matters, although obviously processing such as Clarity can make matters more obvious. If upgrading LR would help, that's on the table, but it would be pretty annoying to upgrade and find that this issue remained...

[David Sutton]

It looks like chromatic aberration but may well be an effect that has been around since film. There is a thread here:
http://www.lightroomforums.net/showthread.php?21519-Removing-white-Edge-fringing
I've run into this photographing stones against the sky and it's a pain in the neck.
David

[thriddle]

It looks like chromatic aberration but may well be an effect that has been around since film. There is a thread here:
http://www.lightroomforums.net/showthread.php?21519-Removing-white-Edge-fringing
I've run into this photographing stones against the sky and it's a pain in the neck.
David

Thanks David, that does sound like it might be the same problem, although some pictures would have helped the thread :-)

I'll investigate the proposed fix, although channels are not my strong suit.

One thing that still intrigues me is the apparent LR specificity. Attached are four shots from another night picture showing this effect, not quite as vividly. Not exactly the same crop, but near enough to see what's going on. The first two are LR4, first at default settings others than K10D profile, and the second cooled to 3000K, which makes the issue a lot more obvious. The second are from DxO - the first is method defaults (not sure what the fairest comparison is) where this effect is subtle if it's there at all, and the second is the same but at 3000K, where there's no sign of it either. I wonder what DxO is doing differently? I generally prefer LR's controls, but I've been rather impressed with DxO's default output.

Any ideas?

Thanks to all,

David

[jjj]

The attached are 100% crops of two pictures taken on a Pentax K10D (using DNG) processed in LR4 (upgrades to both under consideration!).

The processing engine in the later versions of LR [PV2012] is very markedly better than that in LR 4 [PV2010]. YOu can test the new version for 30 days free. Though maybe wait until dust settle from recent update mess.
Have you tried the Defringe eyedropper in the Lens panel/Dev module to remove halo on buildings against sky? Though cannot recall when that was introduced.

[thriddle]

The processing engine in the later versions of LR [PV2012] is very markedly better than that in LR 4 [PV2010]. YOu can test the new version for 30 days free. Though maybe wait until dust settle from recent update mess.
Have you tried the Defringe eyedropper in the Lens panel/Dev module to remove halo on buildings against sky? Though cannot recall when that was introduced.

Thanks, and I probably will. But yes, have tried the Defringe tool, no joy there. Either it can't find a colour to work with, or the results are a fairly minimal improvement. That's when I first began to realise that this probably wasn't CA. Also, I have seen both on the same picture sometimes, and the CA is typically much thinner and more subtle.

[jjj]

CA can be anything but subtle at times.

[thriddle]

CA can be anything but subtle at times.

True. Let me clarify, in case it's useful.

On the pictures in which I have been able to observe both this effect and the more normal purple/blue fringing, the purple/blue fringing has been thinner (occupying fewer pixels) and a lot easier to eliminate.

Whether this fringing is actually a kind of CA is a question beyond my skill set.

[thriddle]

Update: I've downloaded the trial of LR CC, but the results don't look all that different... 

Again, default settings, one as shot, and one at 3000K.

It seems quite odd to me that this issue isn't better known. I've managed to find one more thread here that describes the problem:

https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/threads/removing-white-outline-on-high-contrast-edges.538974/

But most of the responses either have the wrong explanation (e.g. over sharpening), or are side-tracked by the poster's use of Silver Efex Pro 2.

One makes a certain amount of sense "It'll be the colour transition from blue to brown, with the colour filter you've applied probably darkening the sky. The tendency is for the intermediate pixels at the boundaries of colour areas to resolve to a neutral tone and be left bright in comparison when you've cut the blues to a darker grey tone in the b/w conversion." But I don't really see how that would explain why this issue occurs more with LR than with DxO.

[Hans Kruse]

The processing engine in the later versions of LR [PV2012] is very markedly better than that in LR 4 [PV2010]. YOu can test the new version for 30 days free. Though maybe wait until dust settle from recent update mess.
Have you tried the Defringe eyedropper in the Lens panel/Dev module to remove halo on buildings against sky? Though cannot recall when that was introduced.

LR4 was when the PV2012 was introduced. LR3 had PV2010.

[thriddle]

Thanks Hans! Yes, since my last post I've had a bit more time to play with LR, and soon realised that this was the case. So it's not very reasonable of me to hope for an improvement :-). So far, I'm having a reasonable time with it, now that I've managed to stop it from crashing by disabling my GPU (boo!). But I'm not sure it's offering me a great deal, given that I already have dedicated programs to handle my pano stitching and HDR needs.

[jjj]

I did hesitate re timelines, but didn't think LR4 was so recent.

LR4 was when the PV2012 was introduced. LR3 had PV2010.

I did hesitate re timelines, but didn't think LR4 was so recent.

[thriddle]

I won't bore you with the same pictures again, but for anyone still interested, I've been testing out Capture One, and it doesn't seem to have this issue either.

[JaxT1]

Hi thriddle, glad you've found something that minimizes the effect for you.

According to Jeff Schewe's The Digital Negative 2nd edition (p238), the white edges are to do with the way complementary colors blend into white when mixed by the lens. Apparently the problem existed in the film days as well, but can be made worse by edge based sharpening. The fix for the image in the book was to, using Photoshop, select the sky and use the clone stamp tool to paint over the white line. 

[thriddle]

Thanks Jax, but in this case there's an easier fix, courtesy of some helpers at DPR.

The problem, it turns out, is that LR is doing 'hidden' defringing where it doesn't need to, which is producing the problem.

In my case, this seems to be linked to my camera's profile in LR, as switching to Adobe Standard helps a lot.

But a truly reliable fix is to make a small adjustment brush, set Defringing to -100 (note the minus!) and then paint over the offending area. Works like a charm.

Thanks for the reminder, was planning to come back and post the solution in case someone Googling for the problem found this thread later.

[Tony Jay]

Thanks Jax, but in this case there's an easier fix, courtesy of some helpers at DPR.

The problem, it turns out, is that LR is doing 'hidden' defringing where it doesn't need to, which is producing the problem.

In my case, this seems to be linked to my camera's profile in LR, as switching to Adobe Standard helps a lot.

But a truly reliable fix is to make a small adjustment brush, set Defringing to -100 (note the minus!) and then paint over the offending area. Works like a charm.

Thanks for the reminder, was planning to come back and post the solution in case someone Googling for the problem found this thread later.

Very interesting thread.
Thanks for the update.

Tony Jay

[SanderKikkert]

Yes, very interesting, thanks for getting to the bottom of this Thriddle, encountered this a couple of times with files from the K5 and K5 II in LR 4 as well.

PS Really like that(those) image(s) btw, gorgeous colours and tranquil nighttime mood.

[JaxT1]

The defringe to -100 technique sounds interesting, and seeing as I don't have Photoshop, something I can use, so thanks.

[pluton]

Is defringe available to the adjustment brush in your copy of LR?  It's not on mine...