How do fashion photographers deal with moiré on patterned clothing?

Question

Moiré can show up when photographing fine patterns in fabrics or leather, and an anti-aliasing filter only reduces it in some cases. In fashion photography, how is moiré usually handled in practice? Is it mostly prevented during the shoot, fixed in post-processing, or avoided by changing wardrobe, lighting, aperture, or camera choice?

user4892 · Answer

There are a few ways to deal with moiré and none of them is a guarantee in every situation:

Moiré adjustment tool/brush/filter in your post processing tool(or manual techniques with similar impact, manually blur areas of the image with moiré)
Stop down your aperture to introduce diffraction
Use a higher resolution sensor
Have the model use a different patterned garment
Use film instead of digital mediums

A professional fashion photographer likely is using a medium format high resolution camera and has the option to shoot in a studio with very small apertures and bright lighting that will introduce the necessary amount of diffraction to limit negative impacts of moiré.

Keep in mind that a fashion photographer likely has a great deal of control over the scenario and can make immediate changes if necessary. For example they can view images immediately on a monitor and adjust the models position to a more desirable one if moiré is excessive.

For much more information see: What is moiré? How can we avoid it?

How do fashion photographers deal with moiré on patterned clothing?

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