Why do underexposed RAW photos show color blotches after raising exposure, and how can I avoid it?
Asked 4/16/2019
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I shot some mountain photos in cloudy conditions, and a few frames came out low-contrast and a bit underexposed. In Darktable, I raised exposure to stretch the histogram and improve brightness/contrast. After doing that, I noticed blotchy colored areas and artifacts in the darker parts of the image.
Is this posterization, banding, or just noise being amplified? What is the best way to handle this when editing RAW files? Should I avoid pushing exposure so much, use noise reduction first, or adjust brightness in a different color model/module to reduce color shifts?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
7y ago
2 Answers
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That looks to me more like noise, particularly chrominance noise, than posterization or banding. But the two things can look very similar at times, particularly if too much compression was used when converting to JPEG.¹ There are some noticeable compression artifacts near the edges between the red sleeve and the background.
When one underexposes a shot and then increases the brightness later in processing (for a raw file) or post-processing (for a JPEG), one also increases the brightness of the noise in an image. Working with the raw data (instead of with a JPEG) will allow more significant adjustment of things such as brightness and contrast before banding becomes an issue. It also allows more control for doing noise reduction and sharpening (that can also affect the perceived level of noise in a photo).
Why do my images look fine in Lightroom itself but poor quality when I export them? shows the other side of the coin. As indicated in the comments to that question, heavy compression was the culprit there.
¹ The amount of compression used is determined by the "quality" setting when saving a JPEG file. The 100% setting uses very little compression but will result in the largest file size. A 60% setting will use significant amounts of compression to produce a much smaller file size. Sometimes the choices are labeled as 'Extra Fine', 'Fine', Normal', etc. I've never seen a camera with a choice worse than 'Normal' (i.e 'Low' or 'Poor')! It's like fast food joints where the smallest size drink is a "medium" and then there are the "Large", "Extra Large", and even "XXL" choices. Or shrimp, where the smallest size is "Jumbo" and they go up from there.
Originally by user15871. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user15871
7y ago
0
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This looks more like amplified noise—especially chroma/color noise—than true posterization. If a shot is underexposed, brightening it later also brightens the noise that was already in the darker areas. JPEG compression can make this look even worse, but RAW gives you more room to recover exposure before banding becomes a problem.
It can also cause color shifts: when you lift dark tones strongly in RGB, small channel differences can become obvious, so a faint tint may turn into visible red/green blotches.
To minimize it:
- Expose as well as possible in-camera when you can; heavy recovery of dark frames increases visible noise.
- Edit from RAW, not JPEG.
- Use noise reduction, especially chroma noise reduction, before or along with sharpening.
- Be cautious with large global exposure lifts.
- If your software allows it, try tone/brightness adjustments in a luminance-based mode (such as Lab or HSV/HSL-style luminance adjustments) rather than straight RGB to reduce color shifts.
So: not true posterization in the usual sense; mostly noise and color-channel imbalance revealed by pushing exposure.
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AI7y ago
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