jackholly Loc: Glendale, Wisconsin

I've got chunks in my sky. I'm a newbee here (referred from the friendly folks at Photo Analysis) and was told that you experts can give me a hand.

After enhancing my photo files using Picasa I find artifacts floating in the blue space of the skies. See enlargement of approx. 1/20th of the original file. My hobby quality Finepix S4500 14MP only has the jpg format available so RAW is not an option unless I make the move to pro equipment. So for now I need to find a way to save all of my existing files with some kind of artifact reduction process. I currently do not own any photo processing software. And I'm searching for one that fixes this artifact issue and that is effective and fast and cheap. Any suggestions please?

I found CleanerZoomer online that seems to do an all-right job but I don't want to jump at the first solution I find. Does anyone have experience with this product? Is there something better out there?

Please feel free to repost the attached image if you have something to share. Thank you Thank you Thank you.

Wahawk Loc: NE IA

For anyone to really help you would need to click the "store original" so they could 'download' the full size file to work on or comment.

jackholly Loc: Glendale, Wisconsin

OK. I think this fixes the download function. Thanks.

(Download)

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

Nothing is going to help much with your problem. The quality of file produced by your camera doesn't provide enough data to fix your issue. You need 16-bit image files to fix this. If your camera has choices for picture quality and size, choose the best your camera has to offer. If your camera has other file choices such as tif then try that too. I know that you said your camera doesn't do raw.

By the way, did you crop way in on your image to show us the problem or is this image the complete and original image as it was shot from your camera? It almost seems as though it's just a portion of an image detailing your problem. If so, please post the whole image and not just a portion of it. Do NOT reduce the quality when saving it because that also degrades the quality of the whole image.


Taken from: http://www.cnet.com/products/fujifilm-finepix-s4500-black/
Despite its dSLR-like design, the S4500 is a point-and-shoot camera and a fairly low-end one at that. If you're expecting the photo quality and shooting performance of a dSLR or even a higher-end compact like Fujifilm's own HS30EXR , you won't get that. Make no mistake: You get what you pay for.

Bill Houghton Loc: New York area

There is not quick fiz for blown up image such as this. There is a program free of charge called Gimp, where you can use the smear tool (a fist with a finger sticking out) to kind of blend the rough edges out. Searcher has posted a list of software and descriptions and helpful aids at the top of the forum.

Searcher Loc: Kent, England

This fix is by painting over the image with a Gaussian blur

jackholly Loc: Glendale, Wisconsin

Nice solution guys. Thanks for all of your efforts.

Bobby Deal Loc: Loveland Colorado

Do the skys contain the posterizing and banding BEFORE you run them through Picasa? If not then the problem is with the way you are using the software not with the camera.

Also keep in mind when working with JPG filers that every time you save the file you degrade its pixel quality by as much as 1/3 and at that rate it does not take long to reduce a nice photo to a pile of worthless misshapen pixels

Bill Houghton Loc: New York area

Bobby is right but you have considerations when saving a JPEG, depending on your uses, JPEG might be the way to go. One thing you might want to do, when saving a file is use the Save As (a new name), this will keep the JPEG ordinal intact. And always save in the High Compression setting. I will keep any file I am working with as PSD then save my samples as JPEG's.

Some reading to explane.

http://users.wfu.edu/matthews/misc/jpg_vs_gif/JpgCompTest/

Bill Houghton Loc: New York area

Bobby is right but you have considerations when saving a JPEG, depending on your uses, JPEG might be the way to go. One thing you might want to do, when saving a file is use the Save As, this will keep the JPEG ordinal intact. And always save in the High Compression setting. I will keep any file I am working with as PSD then save my samples as JPEG's.

Some reading to enplane.

http://users.wfu.edu/matthews/misc/jpg_vs_gif/JpgCompTest/

Bobby Deal Loc: Loveland Colorado

Save as and renanimg does not prevent the image from going through yet another round of jpg compression. Every Time you save a file as a jpg it is subjected to another level of jpg compression. JPG compression works by discarding 2 of every 3 similar pixels and smashing the remaining pixel to spread it out and fill the space. Always save working files in a lossless format such as tiff or psd until final poutput

Bill Houghton Loc: New York area

Please read my last two lines. I will keep any file I am working with as PSD then save my samples as JPEG's. Also do I really want top draw photo's of my dogs playing in sprinkler. I think you have to put a value on the photos and what your intention is. Commercially Photo's should be kept in the best format to preserve them, for private use of a birthday day party, that might get printed in a 6 X 4 photo off a Kodak printer. Well you decide.

Bobby Deal Loc: Loveland Colorado

I read your post, I was not addressing the idea that you were doing it wrong. It was a reminder to all who maybe do not have a full understanding of how JPG compression works to not think that saving for the web would allow them to continue to save a file repeatedly as a jpg without consequence

BigDaddy Loc: Pittsburgh, PA

This is incorrect Bobby. When you edit an original jpeg, the picture is loaded into memory, and all edits take place in memory, and nothing changes in the original file unless you save it over top of itself. When you click save as, and give it a different name, the information in memory is saved to a new file name. The file in memory is not effected at all by this. When you are finished editing, save the changes to the new filename, and exit the editor. The original jpg file will not be changed at all. If you want to save your some of your edits, such as layers and such so you don't have to start from scratch again, then you save as a PSD file, or TIFF file. The original jpg will still be pristine and still original, and you can do this a million times with no effect to the original jpg.

Bill Houghton Loc: New York area

Were not talking editing, were talking saving, when you save in Picasa it will overwrite the original applying those edits to the original. When you Save As. it creates a new file. As to say Jane.JPG was the original, you have modified it. What Bobby is saying if you Save it, the Jane file will be degraded which is true, What I'm say is if you save it as Jane A.jpg, and don't save Jane.jpg, the original Jane will not be down graded for future editing. Jane A will be down graded to some degree. But it will leave Jane.jpg alone for future editing if you so wish.

What I implied was, taking 200 photos full size RAW Photos at 24meg each = close to 4 Gigs of storage. If you wish to use use that much storage for a neighbors childs birthday party then go ahead. As JPEG's you would only need about 1 Gig of hard disk.

If I was doing a commercial Job where I was paid, then perhaps, but for general day to day use, I don't think so.
JPEG with the highest compression is my choice for day to day use.

I personally have opened and saved JPEGS to see how much lose was involved. It took about 15 Saves to begin to show color Lose, about 20 saves or edits to show complete color loss.

Bottom Line - it's your disk space use as you wish. I do use Picasa, But never save and original in Picasa, I also save as with a rename, knowing that the original does suffer data loss.