Problem... need advice

[Bobobird]

Please take a moment to look at the lightbox view of this pic and go over the edges of the entire bird.



Almost no post-processing - only lifted shadows and reduced black in ACR and noise removal. All other ACR settings were set to 0. Shot with 1DX and 400mm/f5.6 @ 1/2500, f8, ISO 800. Exposure based on background.

I took this yesterday from a northern position with the low setting sun on my west. From previous observation my position was good to take the golden colours of the background and give the bird a semi-silhouette effect.

If you look around the bird's entire outer edge you will notice a halo or mirroring effect. Sometimes such effects appear if there is excessive sharpening but here it is in the RAW file itself. Most times I see this effect in landscape shots and far away items such as mountain meeting the sky and have never been sure why that happens.

What would cause something like this to happen? How to make sure it does not happen.

Your valuable advice is much appreciated.

Thanks.

[Shadowman]

Is it possible you are seeing reflected light from the bird's true color?

[Shadowman]

Bobo,

I'm not that familiar with bird species, the closest I could find based on this particular shot was a blue heron. Have you identified which species?

[Bobobird]

Thanks John. That possibility did cross my mind as the edges are facing the sun. But an almost mirror effect is quite disconcerting. No?

Surely there is some ways even pp but the latter is fraught with issues especially with the fine feathers on the neck.

Despite the "natural" effects it does look like sloppy work to anyone who sees it.

You are right about the bird - Great Blue Heron. Friendly guy too, sometimes lets me get to very close range like 12-15 feet.

[Kodiak]

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I do not experience the spoken halo on my screen!

[Mike Buckley]

I cannot see any hint of a halo. That's even when viewing the image at the largest size in the Lytebox (two sizes are displayed there) on my profiled and calibrated monitor configured at its native resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels.

EDIT: I recommend that you post a 100% viewing size of a portion of the image that displays the halo on your monitor.

[Geoff F]

Very slightly on the leading wing edges and inner neck.

Trouble is that, besides light angle, you are shooting a round 3 dimensional object then expecting it to appear absolutely perfect when in 2 dimensions. I would be happy with what you have now.

[Bobobird]

Thanks Kodiak, Mike.

Dang it! You 2 are right. If I squint my eyes it is hardly there. The line between dark and light around the edge is slightly brighter but not unusual. Maybe time for a eye check.

It is there though but at 600% squint or not. LOL

[Bobobird]

Thanks Geoff. You are right I should not be nitpicking a technical issue.

[Bobobird]

Just to add. There is one though and no squinting required.
Generated through DPP. 100% crop.

[Donald]

That is something other than what we normally think of as a halo. Don't know what and maybe some of the explanations above explain it. I know it looks 'halo-ish', but it's not what you'd normally see when the word 'halo' is invoked. It's something to do with light and not processing, I'm pretty sure.

[ajohnw]

I've had something similar to what I can see using a laptop at the moment on the 1st image from chromatic aberration correction. It's corrected but did not really matched the background colour and left something viewed at smaller sizes that looks a bit like a sharpening halo. I didn't look at it full sized but don't think it would have looked like the crop if I had. That looks like the shadow lifting has been applied with a faded out edge mask or spread for some other reason, maybe the pixel values on the edges of the bird are too close to the background in places.

John
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[Bobobird]

Thanks Donald. Light hits objects in many different ways and a moving object with lighter back feathers etc is an easy target to get that sort of effect. On white gulls for instance we would call it light reflection but have not quite noticed this on darker birds until now. I will try doing more of this and see how it goes.

But that DPP generated image cannot see the light of day, at least not coming from anyone of us here.

[Mike Buckley]

What is DPP?

I've seen a similar effect also when a bright subject and dark background are displayed but I've never seen anything like this unless it was caused by post-processing. I'm suspicious of your noise removal and your shadow lifting, as I can imagine either or both causing this situation.

[Ken Curtis]

Bobo, it certainly looks like some kind of edge enhancement to give the appearance of sharpening. I see the golden color on the dark bird and a lighter color in the background. Since you mentioned doing noise removal, I wonder if whatever software you used attempted to restore the edges after doing noise reduction, which blurs the subject to some degree.

[NorthernFocus]

Simplest test of whether it is processing related is to open the RAW file with no processing at all. This looks like one of two things to me. Either a halo caused by the shadows lightening or what someone already mentioned, artifacts of CA correction not matching BG colors. I've seen similar effects from both. Never zeroed in on why/when it occurs but is very image specific. In this case my guess is the shadow lightening caused it.

Basic troubleshooting procedure would be to return to the original image and apply your PP one step at a time until the phenomenon manifests itself. If it is there with no processing at all then it must be an optical aberation of that particular lens.

[Otavio]

...open the RAW file with no processing at all. .... Either a halo caused by the shadows lightening or what someone already mentioned, artifacts of CA correction not matching BG colors.

Hi, Bobo. I am pretty much aligned with Dan's thoughts. It looks quite a logical way you could follow, to better understand this issue. Your shadows lightening might have definitely generated this "halo like" effect.

Please let us know of your conclusion.

[Bobobird]

Thanks for all the input.

@Mike - DPP is Canon's post-processing software.

I believe some may be confused by the 100% crop - that was specifically to show what DPP did to it at all its default values. It shows an exaggerated view of the "problem"

Attached is a 100% straight out of ACR, all values are zero including those that are set to something else as default. ie noise reduction and sharpening. Adobe does not have a lens profile for this lens. (A thread at the Adobe forums says that they did not make one because the lens was perfect.). It is a 400mm/f5.6.

The whitish area along the neck is not an issue, fine feather movement should have contributed to that.

Squint or no squint - the top of the beak (left top corner) and straight curve on right of neck shows a faint outer "shadow".

[Mike Buckley]

the top of the beak (left top corner) and straight curve on right of neck shows a faint outer "shadow".

Not on my monitor when viewing it at the largest magnification provided in the Lytebox.

[FootLoose]

Ditto. The little bit of lightness I can see looks like very fine feathers