Canon 40d raw help, mottled image

[espressogeek]

I have been fighting mottled looking artifacts around areas that should have a smooth gradient. I am hoping someone can shed some light on this for me. The below crop is taken from an image that most would consider a good exposure and some even a little hot. Anyway, if you look around the shadows of the pears there is this terrible mottled artifacts when processing the raw. I have circled it in red. Can someone please enlighten/help me? BTW I am shooting raw and processing as a 16bit file in prophoto color space.



I will try to post the original raw shortly.

[Panopeeper]

Send the raw with yousendit to any fictious email address and post the link to it (do not select password protection).

[John Sheehy]

I have been fighting mottled looking artifacts around areas that should have a smooth gradient. I am hoping someone can shed some light on this for me. The below crop is taken from an image that most would consider a good exposure and some even a little hot. Anyway, if you look around the shadows of the pears there is this terrible mottled artifacts when processing the raw. I have circled it in red. Can someone please enlighten/help me? BTW I am shooting raw and processing as a 16bit file in prophoto color space.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=159146\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

This area should look almost completely black.  I need to copy and paste your image into phtoshop and boost the shadow area quite a bit to see your problem, but what I see looks like JPEG artifacts, so it is probably no what you are complaining about.  However, the histogram is full down there, so there is no posterization beyond the limits of 8-bit images.

[espressogeek]

This area should look almost completely black.  I need to copy and paste your image into phtoshop and boost the shadow area quite a bit to see your problem, but what I see looks like JPEG artifacts, so it is probably no what you are complaining about.  However, the histogram is full down there, so there is no posterization beyond the limits of 8-bit images.
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I think this is the correct raw,

[a href=\"http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=C7C115FA763F4FBB]http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?acti...7C115FA763F4FBB[/url]

I am seeing posterization while in CS3 on this image in the shadows if I touch the levels at all. I would appreciate some help as this is driving me nuts. Maybe its my monitor?

[John Sheehy]

I think this is the correct raw,

http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?acti...7C115FA763F4FBB

I am seeing posterization while in CS3 on this image in the shadows if I touch the levels at all. I would appreciate some help as this is driving me nuts. Maybe its my monitor?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=159360\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I am not sure exactly what it is you're seeing.  Your original looks too dark in that area to see on my monitor.  I just manually converted the RAW with the literal blackpoint, and your shadow areas only have fine noise; no groups of blotches like when I pull up the levels on your original.  The only blotches are the prints of the table.

[Panopeeper]

1. The image you posted is so dark, that I get the same only after -4 EV in ACR.

2. The area, where "smooth gradient" should be is a wooden (or imitation) table with strong grain pattern. There is nothing smooth there.

Following is what I get with ACR, no adjustments at all.

[espressogeek]

1. The image you posted is so dark, that I get the same only after -4 EV in ACR.

2. The area, where "smooth gradient" should be is a wooden (or imitation) table with strong grain pattern. There is nothing smooth there.

Following is what I get with ACR, no adjustments at all.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=159369\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Thanks for looking at this. I just looked at the original on my laptop and it looks pitch black. I need to have a look at this on my monitor on my main computer. I really wonder if something is wrong with how I have it setup.

BTW it is a real wooden platter ;-) .

[DarkPenguin]

What kind of monitor are you viewing these on?  It isn't a 6 bit monitor is it?  And did you profile it or calibrate and profile it?  (Cause if you calibrate an LCD via the RGB controls you can lose color space.)  Just a thought.