Grid pattern in background

Andy W

Senior Member
This shot is SOOC converted to Jpeg.

untitled-509600.jpg




First I denoised it with Topaz set at Denoise 20, sharpen 20, recover original detail 5, color noise reduction .10. I also tried it set to 10, 10, 0, 0 and had the same results. The tennis net looking grid pattern was there upon opening it in ACR. Has anyone seen this before?

untitled--6-Edit.jpg
 

hark

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Looks like it could be banding. I only encountered it once with a photo SOOC so I skipped that image and moved onto something else. Since it isn't something I deal with and lack first-hand experience with how to resolve it, I am not able to point you in the right direction, Andy. But do some online searching until someone else hopefully can assist you.
 

Fred Kingston

Senior Member
Obviously, Topaz is doing it. I'd probably set the Denoise to 75 and the Sharpen to 0... and then reverse those 2 parameters to see which one is introducing the pattern...
 

Andy W

Senior Member
I'm w/ @FredKingston on this one...

Although I'm not sure any settings change will fix it. Topaz has a long history of grid artifact issues. This article may help, but it may not get rid of it completely:

https://help.topazlabs.com/hc/en-us/articles/360038893192-Artifacting-in-DeNoise-AI

From their site:

This will cause the image to process on the CPU instead of the GPU. This will probably make your image process slower but will eliminate the artifacting.

Making it slower is not a good option for me, it's pretty slow already!
 

Andy W

Senior Member
Here is a thread from Luminous Landscapes that describes the same issue with Sharpen AI. It shows the same type of grid banding that you are experiencing.

https://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=129798.0

And then they had a second thread because the same type of issue was present.

https://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=130043.0


It seems to be a common problem which is too bad, otherwise it works very well.


Someone mentioned Topaz Studio 2 on another site and said it runs better on his old Macbook. I'm downloading the trial to see how it performs on my PC. Thanks for the tips!
 

hark

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The only person I know of here who might be able to offer additional insight would be @BackdoorArts - maybe Jake has encountered this issue? :confused:
 

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
I've gotten banding with and without Topaz. Learn to use the Suppress/Reduce Artifacts slider to help control those introduced during processing. You can also use masks to apply the Topaz edits just to subjects and not to the background. If there's noise in the background then do 2 passes in Denoise, first to reduce noise and then a second to sharpen.

I'm shooting RAW so I tend not to see them until the JPEG is exported. When I do I edit the JPEG and will introduce Gaussian blur in the banded areas to minimize or eliminate them.
 

Andy W

Senior Member
I've gotten banding with and without Topaz. Learn to use the Suppress/Reduce Artifacts slider to help control those introduced during processing. You can also use masks to apply the Topaz edits just to subjects and not to the background. If there's noise in the background then do 2 passes in Denoise, first to reduce noise and then a second to sharpen.

I'm shooting RAW so I tend not to see them until the JPEG is exported. When I do I edit the JPEG and will introduce Gaussian blur in the banded areas to minimize or eliminate them.

I was at the end of my trial and my old PC struggled with Denoise so I uninstalled it. In the future I would like to have a better PC and take the time to learn more about it. I heard that Studio 2 is more friendly with not so up to date PCs so I'm trying it. I understand that it is more of a "Denoise lite" though. Thanks Jake!
 

hark

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Andy, how much RAM does your current PC have? I know some of the Topaz software requires quite a bit.
 

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
Andy, would you mind posting the raw file? I'd like to mess with it to see if I can determine when it happens and why. I mentioned before that I get banding, but that's not what I'm seeing now (I've reached the point where I now need to don a pair of readers when I edit photos and I didn't have them on when I wrote my initial response). I don't know that I've experienced that in any of my edits.
 

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
OK, so I ran this through my workflow, which is as follows:
0. Open in Photoshop with no prior adjustments other than cropping in Lightroom
1. Topaz Denoise AI
2. Camera Raw Filter
3. Local dodging and burning
4. Add blur to background if needed or desired
5. Topaz Adjust AI to sharpen

OK, with yours I simply used 1, 2, and 5.

Here's the image after Denoise and Camera Raw:

_A509600-DN+ACR.jpg


Using Denoise I tend to leave the Denoise slider at 15 (which is usually enough to deal with ISO 4000 on the D500) and bump the Sharpen slider to anywhere from 20 to 40. I then look at the preview in multiple locations to see what I have. I do not touch the Recover Original Detail or Color Noise sliders unless I see detail going away and the obvious evidence of color noise, which I rarely get. The noise in this shot was soft but there are lots of small details so I ultimately went with Denoise at 10, Sharpen at 40, and 0's for the other two.

In Camera Raw I then did light and curve adjustments, boosting exposure and pulling back highlights making sure that I have the blowout indicators set so I can tell when I'm losing light information. I also bumped the Vibrance, Texture, and Clarity sliders to see what I got with no other filters. Here are the settings (Curves was just a very small 'S')...

Screen Shot 2020-09-10 at 11.01.05 AM.png

I would be happy with it at this point, but I decided to mess with Topaz Adjust AI which I much prefer to Sharpen, both for its effectivity and it's ease on CPU.

So here it is after applying some additional detail extraction/sharpening in Adjust...

_A509600-DN+ACR+TAdj.jpg


Here's the settings from Adjust ...

Screen Shot 2020-09-10 at 10.47.12 AM.png

With rare exception I only use the Detail section of Adjust.

I don't see grid lines, so I'm wondering if you did some light adjustments in Lightroom before opening in Denoise? I find Denoise to be less problematic when it's the very first thing I apply. If I have an overly dark image I can sometimes get pixelated weirdness after Denoise so if I do then I'll use a levels adjustment layer first to brighten, nothing else, and then merge to a new layer to apply Denoise.

I have Sharpen AI, but as I've said I only use it to fix the original sharpness in an image I need to have that is just soft to begin with.

Please let me know if y'all are seeing the 'grid lines' because I am not.
 

Andy W

Senior Member
I don't see any grid lines on the one you did. I used denoise first, so I don't know what caused the grid. I need to keep experimenting with it.

Thanks Jake!
 

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
I don't see any grid lines on the one you did. I used denoise first, so I don't know what caused the grid. I need to keep experimenting with it.

Thanks Jake!

If it appeared after Denoise it may be the Recover Original Detail slider? Like I said I don't tend to use it. In general I will just apply it to the bottom layer but in noiser images I will duplicate the background layer and apply Denoise to that and then use a layer mask to paint back bits of detail where needed.
 
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