PLEASE HELP TROUBLESHOOT! Strange circular fringing w/ green tint

[Calchiu]

Hello everyone!

I was really excited to edit this photo, but once I brought the shadows up to see what I was working with, I noticed some very strange green circular "fringing" (don't know what to call it) around my subject. You will notice it if you take a close look at the left and right hand sides of the photo I have provided.

Does anyone know what this is called, how it is caused, what I can do to prevent it in the future, and if there's anything that I can do to salvage this photo (without having to make it insanely dark?

Thanks!

- Calvin

 

[jbf]

The effect is called "banding". When the light falls off in a circular pattern, it will appear circular. For sunsets, it often appears as horizontal lines. Here is an article:

https://photographylife.com/what-is-color-banding-and-how-to-fix-it

There are many more articles if you search the term.

 

[Arneb]

The effect is called "banding". When the light falls off in a circular pattern, it will appear circular. For sunsets, it often appears as horizontal lines. Here is an article:

https://photographylife.com/what-is-color-banding-and-how-to-fix-it

There are many more articles if you search the term.

While it is indeed an example of banding, I strongly doubt it is caused by light fall off as the pattern is not circular. It seems to have a polygon shape.

This polygon-circular banding is mainly down to a combination of clumsy engineering and underexposure of the sensor. One of the cameras that's known to have this problem is the Sony a6000. (BTW, is your image taken with a Sony a6000?)

In the case of the a6000, this annoying thing can be turned off, I believe, in "lens correction" => "lens shading" or something like that. Furthermore, if this circular banding shows up, you've also very likely underexposed your image. You might want to take a look at how much highlight headroom you still have. I guess at least a full stop (before highlights become clipped that you don't want to clip).

You'll have to correct for the lens shading in post of course, but then using better quality tools that don't leave such ugly banding. The extra noise in the corners is inevitable however, except if you prefer the vignette look.

In your image the blue lights in the front can also give problems. Overexposure - especially of blue light it seems - can lead to overflow of pixels into neighboring pixels, which can be very ugly (the blue pixels will not only overflow into other blue pixels, but also into green and especially red pixels, thus creating purple artifacts). So in your case, the dynamic range necessary to capture that scene might simply be larger than the range your camera can capture... Yet, my guess is that even the blue lights are still not clipped (in the raw file).

 

[Calchiu]

The effect is called "banding". When the light falls off in a circular pattern, it will appear circular. For sunsets, it often appears as horizontal lines. Here is an article:

https://photographylife.com/what-is-color-banding-and-how-to-fix-it

There are many more articles if you search the term.

While it is indeed an example of banding, I strongly doubt it is caused by light fall off as the pattern is not circular. It seems to have a polygon shape.

This polygon-circular banding is mainly down to a combination of clumsy engineering and underexposure of the sensor. One of the cameras that's known to have this problem is the Sony a6000. (BTW, is your image taken with a Sony a6000?)

In the case of the a6000, this annoying thing can be turned off, I believe, in "lens correction" => "lens shading" or something like that. Furthermore, if this circular banding shows up, you've also very likely underexposed your image. You might want to take a look at how much highlight headroom you still have. I guess at least a full stop (before highlights become clipped that you don't want to clip).

You'll have to correct for the lens shading in post of course, but then using better quality tools that don't leave such ugly banding. The extra noise in the corners is inevitable however, except if you prefer the vignette look.

In your image the blue lights in the front can also give problems. Overexposure - especially of blue light it seems - can lead to overflow of pixels into neighboring pixels, which can be very ugly (the blue pixels will not only overflow into other blue pixels, but also into green and especially red pixels, thus creating purple artifacts). So in your case, the dynamic range necessary to capture that scene might simply be larger than the range your camera can capture... Yet, my guess is that even the blue lights are still not clipped (in the raw file).

I took this with a Sony a7rii.

Overall I was 2 stops underexposed, but I did so so that I didn't blow out the blue lights.

I wasn't able to find "Lens shading" or anything like that. Are you referring to a setting in Lightroom or on my camera?

 

[Arneb]

The effect is called "banding". When the light falls off in a circular pattern, it will appear circular. For sunsets, it often appears as horizontal lines. Here is an article:

https://photographylife.com/what-is-color-banding-and-how-to-fix-it

There are many more articles if you search the term.

(...)

I took this with a Sony a7rii.

Overall I was 2 stops underexposed, but I did so so that I didn't blow out the blue lights.

Very understandable. You choose a difficult subject . That said, I found my Sony raw files have a lot of (often unused) highlight headroom, so even an image that looked horribly overexposed in the OOC jpeg still gave a non-clipped raw image, which came out great after a strong negative exposure correction in my raw editor.

I wasn't able to find "Lens shading" or anything like that. Are you referring to a setting in Lightroom or on my camera?

It is playing 'hide and seek' somewhere in the menus of your camera. See http://docs.esupport.sony.com/dvimag/ILCE6000_guide/en/contents/TP0000226637.html. This circular banding issue comes up a few times a year in the Sony subfora.

 

[Calchiu]

The effect is called "banding". When the light falls off in a circular pattern, it will appear circular. For sunsets, it often appears as horizontal lines. Here is an article:

https://photographylife.com/what-is-color-banding-and-how-to-fix-it

There are many more articles if you search the term.

(...)

I took this with a Sony a7rii.

Overall I was 2 stops underexposed, but I did so so that I didn't blow out the blue lights.

Very understandable. You choose a difficult subject . That said, I found my Sony raw files have a lot of (often unused) highlight headroom, so even an image that looked horribly overexposed in the OOC jpeg still gave a non-clipped raw image, which came out great after a strong negative exposure correction in my raw editor.

I wasn't able to find "Lens shading" or anything like that. Are you referring to a setting in Lightroom or on my camera?

It is playing 'hide and seek' somewhere in the menus of your camera. See http://docs.esupport.sony.com/dvimag/ILCE6000_guide/en/contents/TP0000226637.html. This circular banding issue comes up a few times a year in the Sony subfora.

OH! I’ve seen that while flipping through my horrendously-organized menu before. Turning that off only impacts my JPEG preview, correct? And RAW files don’t get any of these corrections until they are imported into LR? If so, I turned off the correction in LR and still had similar issues with it. In the end, I know that I’ll have to trash this image haha (bummer).

 

[Arneb]

(...)

It is playing 'hide and seek' somewhere in the menus of your camera. See http://docs.esupport.sony.com/dvimag/ILCE6000_guide/en/contents/TP0000226637.html. This circular banding issue comes up a few times a year in the Sony subfora.

OH! I’ve seen that while flipping through my horrendously-organized menu before.

I like your description. 'Horrendous' is just the perfect word.

Turning that off only impacts my JPEG preview, correct?

If I'm right, the 'lens shading' correction impacts BOTH the jpeg (and jpeg preview) and the raw file. It is not just a certain parameter, it really are the actual pixel values that are changed.

Personally I don't like this at all. I want my jpegs 'corrected', but not my raw files. The extremely rough algorithm Sony uses - resulting in the ugly circular banding - doesn't make this any better.

And RAW files don’t get any of these corrections until they are imported into LR?

I don't know what Lightroom exactly does, but I suppose they have proper algorithms for de-vignetting that don't create so much banding.

If so, I turned off the correction in LR and still had similar issues with it. In the end,

Turning the 'lens shading' setting on the camera off should give slightly vignetted jpegs and a vignetted raw file. It should be possible to de-vignette that raw file without much circular banding.

I know that I’ll have to trash this image haha (bummer).

A possible solution might be to reverse-engineer Sony's crappy algorithm so that it can be applied in reverse. Might try this in summer .

 

[Calchiu]

(...)

It is playing 'hide and seek' somewhere in the menus of your camera. See http://docs.esupport.sony.com/dvimag/ILCE6000_guide/en/contents/TP0000226637.html. This circular banding issue comes up a few times a year in the Sony subfora.

OH! I’ve seen that while flipping through my horrendously-organized menu before.

I like your description. 'Horrendous' is just the perfect word.

Turning that off only impacts my JPEG preview, correct?

If I'm right, the 'lens shading' correction impacts BOTH the jpeg (and jpeg preview) and the raw file. It is not just a certain parameter, it really are the actual pixel values that are changed.

Personally I don't like this at all. I want my jpegs 'corrected', but not my raw files. The extremely rough algorithm Sony uses - resulting in the ugly circular banding - doesn't make this any better.

And RAW files don’t get any of these corrections until they are imported into LR?

I don't know what Lightroom exactly does, but I suppose they have proper algorithms for de-vignetting that don't create so much banding.

If so, I turned off the correction in LR and still had similar issues with it. In the end,

Turning the 'lens shading' setting on the camera off should give slightly vignetted jpegs and a vignetted raw file. It should be possible to de-vignette that raw file without much circular banding.

I know that I’ll have to trash this image haha (bummer).

A possible solution might be to reverse-engineer Sony's crappy algorithm so that it can be applied in reverse. Might try this in summer .

Ahh alright, I'll have to run some tests with it on and off to see if I can replicate and then "fix" the issue.

Thanks again for your awesome input!

 

[Bobthearch]

...and if there's anything that I can do to salvage this photo (without having to make it insanely dark?

Working in layers, mask the subject from the background. Lighten the subject as you have but leave the background dark.