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Aperture 2 question: excessive noise on JPG images in Viewer

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cstephens

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Hi,

Has anyone noticed high ISO JPGs appearing excessively noisy in the Aperture Viewer window? I shoot with a D90 and process the NEFs in Capture NX2, saving off both the NEFs and the final JPGs. My high ISO JPG images look exactly as I expect (and are consistent) when viewed in all of the following programs:

(a) Photo Mechanic
(b) Capture NX2
(c) View NX / NX2
(d) iPhoto
(e) Safari / Firefox

... however, when viewed in the Aperture 2 Viewer (at the "fit to screen" zoom level) there is more noise visible and the image looks poor.

Now, I suspect what is happening is that Aperture is not showing me the actual image but rather some sort of "preview", and I guess the downsampling algorithm just isn't that good, but it really wrecks the apparent image quality when browsing through images. It looks OK (i.e. as expected) when viewed at 100%, so I know the underlying image is OK, I think it's just the preview that is poor.

Aperture has a concept of "previews" (e.g. for sharing with other OSX apps) and I have this optional feature turned OFF - so this is not an issue of me selecting too low a quality for preview generation. Far as I can tell, whatever Aperture is showing me in the Viewer window is totally separate from the previews it generates for sharing with other OSX Apps.

If it matters - I used referenced masters not managed masters, and I have made no edits whatsoever to the JPG images in question. This is JPG only (I no longer import raw files to Aperture - my NEFs are processed elsewhere, e.g. CNX2).

I am using Aperture 2. I don't know if this applies to Aperture 3.

If anyone is willing to try an experiment to reproduce this, I think the following steps should do it:
  • find a suitable high ISO JPG image (I'm using Nikon D90 ISO 1600 shots processed with CNX2 with noise reduction turned OFF)
  • view it in any software other than Aperture 2 (see list above)
  • view it in Aperture 2, click "View" -> "Viewer Only"
For me, the perceived image quality in Aperture is much worse (more visible noise).

Has anyone seen this before? If so, is there a way to fix it?

I used to use Aperture as a full-fledged importer, organizer, keyworder, raw processor - but after discovering CNX2 and PhotoMechanic, I abandoned Apple's NEF rendering. At this point, all I want to do is use Aperture for its cataloging capabilities and to show off my library of "finished images" - but the Aperture Viewer quality is a deal breaker for me. Puzzling to me that the lowly iPhoto shows the image "correctly" yet Apple's pro-level app does not.
 
Go into preferences, and set your preview size at the same resolution as your monitor resolution. Set Quality at 6. Then go pick a bunch of JPEGs and force Aperture to make new previews using "control-click" and choose to create or renew preview. If you have no previews selected, Aperture may be using the embedded JPEG that comes with your Master file. Give it a try.
--
Only my opinion. It's worth what you paid for it. Your mileage may vary! ;-}

http://www.dougwigton.com/
 
Hi Doug - thanks for the suggestion. I tried, but unfortunately it didn't help (and even if it did - I don't want t have to maintain a second copy of my entire image library in the way of reduced resolution previews).

Normally I have preview generation OFF, but per your suggestion I turned it on, and tried various resolutions (including the one that matches my iMac screen - marked with * in the GUI for this reason I think), and various quality settings (low as 6, up to 12). Far as I can tell this made absolutely no difference on the image shown in the Viewer window. I think whatever it is showing me in the Viewer is completely independent from the previews.

You mention embedded JPGs - well Photo Mechanic works that way 100% of the time and these images look normal/expected in Photo Mechanic. I don't know how to diagnose this any further, but it just seems like it could be just a poor downsampling algorithm on Apertures part. If I zoom in to 100% the image looks identical in all applications, it's only at something less than 100% (e.g. fit-to-window size) that Aperture gives the poor output. Unfortunately, this is the zoom-level most commonly used for casual browsing.

Frustrating, but I guess there's not much I can do. I'm not going to invest in Lightroom at this point, so I guess I'll keep using Aperture for the time being, until the Photo Mechanic folks get their catalog product released.
 
I use both Aperture and Lightroom constantly, and have not been bothered by any loss of detail in the images viewed on the screen. Can you attach a screen shot of what's bothering your so we can comment better.
--
Only my opinion. It's worth what you paid for it. Your mileage may vary! ;-}

http://www.dougwigton.com/
 
Hi Doug, I'm happy to do that later when I'm home - but I'm not sure how visible the difference will be in a screenshot of the image from both applications.

Alternatively, is there some way for me to simply send you a single JPG image through this forum, or by email? If so, then to see if you can replicate the issue all you've got to do is import the JPG as a referenced master into Aperture, and then view it in the main viewer window, then compare it to the same view you get when dropping the original JPG directly onto the Safari (or iPhoto, or Photo Mechanic, or View NX, etc ) icon.
 
cstephens said:
Has anyone noticed high ISO JPGs appearing excessively noisy in the Aperture Viewer window? I shoot with a D90 and process the NEFs in Capture NX2, saving off both the NEFs and the final JPGs. My high ISO JPG images look exactly as I expect (and are consistent) when viewed in all of the following programs:
Click to expand...
cstephens said:
Now, I suspect what is happening is that Aperture is not showing me the actual image but rather some sort of "preview", and I guess the downsampling algorithm just isn't that good, but it really wrecks the apparent image quality when browsing through images. It looks OK (i.e. as expected) when viewed at 100%, so I know the underlying image is OK, I think it's just the preview that is poor.
Click to expand...
All programs will not show the actual image, unless viewing at 100%. What you see could be some suboptimal downsampling algorithm (or even a bug only affecting this on some machines, ie, yours but not for most others). Another explanation could be some sharpening/definition that accidentally is applied by you in Aperture.
 
Hi noirdesir - I suspect it's one of the former issues. I do not have any Aperture adjustments applied to the image at all. I'm working on uploading some images to demonstrate what I'm seeing, and maybe to see if you guys can reproduce it with my image.
 
Hi Doug,
Alpha Doug said:
Can you attach a screen shot of what's bothering your so we can comment better.
Click to expand...
Yes - I grabbed a PNG screenshot from my Mac and posted it here (click the spyglass to view it "large"):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ramblinwreck001/5219809400/

I have uploaded the JPEG in question (about 9MB) to my gallery - I think if you click my username you should be able get to the gallery to download the original image. While there is some noise in the image, it is the amount of noise I would expect given the ISO setting. It looks "normal" in every application I've got except Aperture.

I'd be very interested to know how it looks in your Aperture viewer.

The odd thing is that some photos show this effect worse than others. I cherry picked this one because it is one of the worst. The only thing "unusual" about this image is that I cropped it in NX2 - I wonder if Aperture doesn't handle downsampling well for certain aspect ratios and/or resolutions. (?)
 
Aperture displays the image in the viewer as follows:

1 - Show thumbnail
2 - (show preview, if one exists)
3 - Load full image (shows 'loading...')

It also has a 'quick preview' mode where it stops at 2 (or 1 if no preview). Quick preview is toggled on/off using the P key.

So depending on your settings you could be viewing:

a) thumbnail
b) Aperture generated preview
c) Camera generated preview (within the EXIF)
d) Full image

You say you don't maintain previews so that eliminates (b).

You can eliminate (c) by checking your preferences and make sure that "use embedded preview if available" is not selected. If it was selected, and you turn it off, restart Aperture just in case images are cached.

If that doesn't explain it you are left with (a) and (d).

If you were viewing in quick preview mode, you would now be looking at the thumbnail (in Aperture 3 the thumbnail is 1280 pixels in the logest edge, but I think that value is changed from how it worked Aperture 2).

Select the image and regenerate the thumbnail. Then go into quick preview mode and review the image. Then press P to exit quick preview and load the full image. Does it change? Does it look better/worse?

I will download your image when I'm back at my Mac and see how it renders there.

One other thing that may affect the appearence is if you have on screen proofing selected.

-Najinsky
 
Sure. You can do that. I'd be happy to look at it. My email address is in my profile.
cstephens said:
Hi Doug, I'm happy to do that later when I'm home - but I'm not sure how visible the difference will be in a screenshot of the image from both applications.

Alternatively, is there some way for me to simply send you a single JPG image through this forum, or by email? If so, then to see if you can replicate the issue all you've got to do is import the JPG as a referenced master into Aperture, and then view it in the main viewer window, then compare it to the same view you get when dropping the original JPG directly onto the Safari (or iPhoto, or Photo Mechanic, or View NX, etc ) icon.
Click to expand...
--
Only my opinion. It's worth what you paid for it. Your mileage may vary! ;-}

http://www.dougwigton.com/
 
I was able to get the download of the full size screen capture, and I can definitely see the difference, but could you upload or email me the original JPEG? I can't find it on Flikr.

Doug
cstephens said:
cstephens said:
Can you attach a screen shot of what's bothering your so we can comment better.
Click to expand...
Yes - I grabbed a PNG screenshot from my Mac and posted it here (click the spyglass to view it "large"):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ramblinwreck001/5219809400/

I have uploaded the JPEG in question (about 9MB) to my gallery - I think if you click my username you should be able get to the gallery to download the original image. While there is some noise in the image, it is the amount of noise I would expect given the ISO setting. It looks "normal" in every application I've got except Aperture.

I'd be very interested to know how it looks in your Aperture viewer.

The odd thing is that some photos show this effect worse than others. I cherry picked this one because it is one of the worst. The only thing "unusual" about this image is that I cropped it in NX2 - I wonder if Aperture doesn't handle downsampling well for certain aspect ratios and/or resolutions. (?)
Click to expand...
--
Only my opinion. It's worth what you paid for it. Your mileage may vary! ;-}

http://www.dougwigton.com/
 
Najinsky wrote
Member said:
I will download your image when I'm back at my Mac and see how it renders there.
Click to expand...
Like Doug, I was only able to get the medium size image from you Gallery. When I select the original size, it says it is marked as private.

The medium size image look fine in Aperture, no noise issue.

-Najinsky
 
Same here. I am not seeing an increase of noise in Aperture vs. Preview, Photoshop, Lightroom, etc. But I'm running Aperture 3.1 on 10.6.5. The OP is running AP2, although that shouldn't make a difference.
--
Only my opinion. It's worth what you paid for it. Your mileage may vary! ;-}

http://www.dougwigton.com/
 
Hi Doug & Najinsky,

Thanks for helping. I gave up trying to get the gallery to behave like I want, apparently I'm missing something obvious with respect to sharing a full size file.

Anyway, I put the 9MB JPEG on dropbox - can you please try again with this full resolution file? Here is the link to download it:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4919709/20091204_190050

[NOTE: you have to add .JPG to the above link in order for it to work. I stripped it out to prevent the forum software from reading the link and embedding the full res image within the post]

As a sanity check, I tried importing this file as a referenced master directly from my dropbox folder into Aperture and I still get the poor noise rendition in my Aperture viewer. I'm baffled and frustrated.

Please let me know how it looks in your Aperture viewer.

Thanks
Chris
 
No joy. I get an 004 page not found error on following your link.
--
Only my opinion. It's worth what you paid for it. Your mileage may vary! ;-}

http://www.dougwigton.com/
 
Doug - did you add .JPG to the URL as I described in my note? You have to do that otherwise you'll get the 404 error.

The reason I stripped that out is out of respect for forum readers - if I left it in there it appeared to open the 9MB file directly in the message viewer, something readers might not appreciate.

I just checked the link (with manually added .JPG) and it works.

One interesting new tidbit of information - when I opened this link (here on my relatively low-end work PC laptop, using Firefox) I'm getting the poor noise rendition just like I'm getting in Aperture. It looks great when doing the same thing on Firefox on my Mac.

So in summary, looks poor on:
  • Aperture 2 Viewer on mac
  • Firefox on windows laptop
Looks great on: everything else I've tried.
 
I was able to download the full-size image by appending .jpg to the URL you gave...

To me the base JPG, is pretty noisy, so it's probably an issue with downsampling.

However when I load it in Aperture it looks fine, or at least the same as Preview (this is zoomed out to fit on screen) and less noisy than you screen shot. (both Preview and Aperture look about the same as the left side of the screenshot you had).

You said initially you were using Aperture 2, you did not upgrade to Aperture 3?

--
---> Kendall
http://InsideAperture.com
http://www.pbase.com/kgelner
http://www.pbase.com/sigmadslr/user_home
 
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