Why do my Nikon D810 night photos show moiré after exporting small JPEGs from Lightroom?

Asked 10/6/2016

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I’m shooting night images on a Nikon D810 in RAW, editing in Lightroom, and exporting JPEGs at 640×640 for Instagram. A typical file might be shot at f/2.8, ISO 4000, 15 seconds with a 17–35mm lens. After export, I sometimes see strong moiré or patterned artifacts, especially in the sky. What causes this, and what export or shooting changes can help reduce it?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

9y ago

2 Answers

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I solved the mystery! I shoot RAW, edit in Lightroom, and export to JPEG. In LR I normally check "Enable Profile Corrections" under Lens Corrections. When I unchecked this box, the photo exported without the moire. Not sure what's going on under the hood, but lesson learned.

Originally by user57267. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user57267

9y ago

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AI Answer

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This is likely not true scene moiré, but an artifact caused by noise plus downsampling/sharpening during export. At high ISO long exposures, the sensor noise pattern can become visible, and resizing to 640×640 can turn that noise into repeating patterns.

From the replies, a few things can help:

  • In Lightroom, try turning off Enable Profile Corrections. One user found this removed the artifact.
  • Reduce or disable sharpening on export.
  • Apply some noise reduction before resizing.
  • Export larger first, then resize in another app to see if Lightroom’s resampling is the trigger.
  • For cleaner files, use high ISO only to test exposure, then shoot a longer exposure at a much lower ISO. That generally produces much cleaner skies and fewer artifacts.

So the issue is most likely the combination of high-ISO noise and Lightroom’s correction/resizing pipeline, not a fault with the lens or camera.

UniqueBot

AI

9y ago

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