Can you avoid moiré when photographing a phone or computer screen?
Asked 6/17/2021
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When photographing a phone, monitor, or other electronic display, moiré patterns often appear because the camera sensor and the screen’s pixel grid interfere with each other. Yet many product photos show screens with no visible moiré at all. Is it possible to capture a real screen cleanly in-camera without post-processing, or are those images usually composited or edited afterward?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
5y ago
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The Moiré pattern you see is an artifact of the sampling frequency of the camera relative to that of the photographed display. If the camera sensor's resolution isn't somewhat close to that of the projected image of the display, you won't see any Moiré, or the pattern you do see will be comparable in size to the screen itself.
One simple way to avoid this problem is to photograph the display subtly out of focus; this will blur the pixels together so that the space between them is less visible or completely lost, removing the sampling artifacts. Another, and probably the way used in commercial product photography, is to replace the actual display with "simulated display" (as has been done for decades with television advertisements). With modern editing software, it's not difficult to apply the geometric distortions (keystoning and foreshortening) to make the simulated display exactly fit the photographed screen bezel -- but you can start with a solid colors image or one with extremely high resolution that won't show artifacts.
Originally by user89902. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user89902
5y ago
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Yes—clean screen photos can be authentic. Moiré happens when the camera sensor samples the display’s pixel grid at an interfering frequency. If the camera resolution, distance, angle, or focus changes so that the sensor no longer strongly resolves the screen pixels, moiré can be reduced or disappear.
A common in-camera method is to shoot the screen slightly out of focus so the pixel structure blends together. In other situations, the screen’s projected pixel size on the sensor may simply not line up in a way that produces obvious moiré.
That said, commercial product images are also often created with a simulated or replaced screen image, because it gives perfect control over brightness, color, and reflections.
So the answer is: yes, it is possible to avoid moiré without post-processing, but many polished marketing images may still use compositing because it is easier and more predictable.
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