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Segmented Whiskers
Sep 25, 2011 14:33:04   #
whitewitch Loc: Buffalo NY
 
Can someone please tell me why my cat's whiskers appear to be segmented in this photo? I am trying to find out why this happens and if there is any way to keep it from happening. I'm using my Fuji Finepix S9000 digital camera in natural light.



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Sep 25, 2011 14:35:26   #
whitewitch Loc: Buffalo NY
 
Now that I'm seeing this photo on this site, I'm not seeing the segmented whiskers so clearly but the segmentation is very clear and noticeable in the original. Any input would be greatly appreciated.

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Sep 26, 2011 06:50:03   #
Singing Swan
 
I photograph my cats a lot and I think the segmented whiskers come from the color of the whiskers. Sometimes the angle the light hits them can cause the problem and other cats...their whiskers always look that way. I find the best way to avoid the problem, if at all possible, is to be certain the light is not directly shining toward the face. But, I do have one cat who has variegated whiskers and her shots always look like she has dotted lines for whiskers.

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Sep 26, 2011 08:53:01   #
roger
 
Does the "segmentation" occur where the background color or light change?

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Sep 26, 2011 09:27:11   #
nowhoha
 
What you may be encountering is an artifact of the digital sensor in your camera. This will vary based on the camera brand and the specific technology of the sensor. Basically, it's the fact that the whisker is very thin and very light in color. Color camera chips are actually a matrix of very tiny light sensors that are tuned to detect the individual primary colors of the light spectrum. A white object needs to evenly expose all of the primary colors in a pixel to digitally represent a white object. Very thin or small white objects will cause color artifacts as they are too tiny to properly expose the adjacent color sensors of a pixel. This will manifest itself as banding or other false color artifacts. Night shots of the sky will often produce false color stars from the white originals because the point of light is too small to expose all of the colors on your sensor.

Use Photoshop or any editing software and zoom in to hand edit out the false colors. There are some software packages that may help to automate this (i.e. Bibble Pro, Nik Software, etc.) but they're expensive.

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Sep 26, 2011 19:03:02   #
whitewitch Loc: Buffalo NY
 
Most of the time I notice this when we are in a naturally lit room and my cat is sitting next to a window or outside door. In the photo that I posted here, she is on my bed which is situated right next to an open door that goes out onto my back porch

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Sep 26, 2011 19:08:06   #
whitewitch Loc: Buffalo NY
 
I shoot my cats (wrong choice of words) usually next to an open outside door or a window. Thanks so much for your response. I thought I might be doing something wrong but I guess it is the lighting and angle and maybe the color of the whiskers as you mentioned.

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Sep 26, 2011 19:12:10   #
whitewitch Loc: Buffalo NY
 
roger wrote:
Does the "segmentation" occur where the background color or light change?


You can't really notice the segmentation in the photo that I posted but I can see it very clearly in the original as I stated. I don't think it really matters if the background is contrasted. It seems to happen a lot. I will take a closer look at other cat pictures I've taken which resulted in segmented whiskers.

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