I don't know who to pick out, so I'll pick out several folks.
I know not only LR causes this, but with the recent discussions of LR vs. PS
and the many recent posts of otherwise
lovely images with various versions of the same problem, well ...
Generally, our images here are not of angels, at least not the sort wearing
halos. And yet, halos abound, on trees,
buildings, hills, and so on in our images.
Let me define what I'm talking about. USM, in it's many guises, including LCE,
in its various forms, including the
Clarity slider in LR, works by enhancing contrast at contrasty edges. When
overdone, it leaves visible light halos
around darker objects and, less often visibly, dark halos around light objects.
Other tools, that don't obviously use
USM still leave halo tracks; the Shadow/Highlight tool in PS is one that tends
to leave large, soft, feathered halos.
A very few things that we photograph have a halo from strong light behind
silhouetted subjects. This may be some
combination of actual subjects and lens flare, but is not what I am talking
about. And yet, here and all over the web,
there are endless images of things with halos. Is it the coming of a new age of
Angels? ;-)
Since I already did this example, and Bob W is so in Hog Heaven that he won't
mind being picked out again, here's what I
hope is a clear example.
<http://www.moosemystic.net/Gallery/Others/Whitmire/w-NewHarbor_ND.htm>
I particularly like this example because the halos along the house/tree line,
upper left are small, but clear, those
around around the sign are so very obvious and because it has a good example of
a dark halo. Look at Enlarged Sample 2.
The sign is what is most obvious, but look at the edge of the rock. This very
dark line is a more subtle, insidious sort
of halo. Not always visible at normal size, it may nevertheless add an odd,
hard to define sense of unreality to parts
of an image.
So here's a rather random, very incomplete set of examples, a very minor
Angelic Hall of Fame.
Chris' landscape sunrise is quite lovely, but there is a pixel+ wide line of
white and lighter gray along the tree line.
$ to donuts that's not on the original.
<http://chriscrawfordphoto.com/chris-details.php?product=1642>
Phillipe's slightly eerie building lit from below has a similar, harder line.
<http://gallery.leica-users.org/d/282051-1/Kaunas+-+Lituanie-00267-5.jpg>
Here, Bob A. has captured magical light, only to detract from it, at least to
my eye, with a large halo of artifact
light around the building and tree competing with the natural light.
<http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/rgacpa_HI/L1005768-Edit.jpg.html>
Yes, there are plenty of others, both from some of the above and others, but I
hope I've made my point - and I'm too
lazy to track down a bunch more.
I tend to think it's a result of people getting comfortable with the Clarity
slider in LR, liking the overall effect as
they crank it up some more and ignoring the details. I think you'd find, if you
went back over recent years here that
the overall 'pop' of images we've posted has gone up. People who were leery of
enhanced contrast and saturation have
become more comfortable with it.
It seems to me that an interesting thing has happened with images posted here
over that time. It used to be Moose who
was most often on the cutting, or bleeding, edge of post processing, and
rightly called on it often enough.
Now, he has largely learned to temper his effects, while a new contingent of
post happy folks are leading the artifact
parade.
In PS, it's fairly easy to use masks to control this problem in many color
images to the point where it not there, or at
least isn't obvious. In many cases, selecting the sky in a layer prior to the
tool causing the effect, making a masked
layer from that selection and putting it above the affected layers simply makes
the problem disappear.
B&W is trickier, as selection is harder without color differences. However,
other tools are more effective for B&W
contrast adjustment than for color.
I know effects may be brushed in, rather than global, in LR4, but I suspect
clean edges aren't part of that process, at
least without lots of time and effort.
Masked Avengel Moose
--
What if the Hokey Pokey *IS* what it's all about?
--
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