Hello,
I have some images with moirée on fabrics.
The results of PL’s moiré slider are not amazing, and I usually export the image in Lightroom, where I finish to neutralize the moirée colors. But even this one cannot remove the moré luminance pattern.
What’s your technique/workflow to deal with that?
I have a bunch of images; I don’t want to open each image in Photoshop and use a healing brush approach to fix the issue.
Of course, I would like a result that looks natural, and I don’t want to blur everything
For images with severe moire like you’re describing, I don’t think there’s much you can do beyond trying a different demosaic method. Even color shifts can be a struggle for PhotoLab, despite the moire removal tool (which as you know only handles some false color). And as you say, the moire pattern itself is also a problem.
What I do when I have to deal with severe moire is to try using darktable for RAW conversion. I find that darktable’s demosaic method is generally better for moire removal than PhotoLab and other RAW software I’ve tested. Not perfect, but I haven’t found anything that is. PhotoLab 8 with DeepPRIME XD2s is almost as good, but adds microcontrast to the moire pattern. You can try applying negative microcontrast or a slight amount of blur to the areas (Local Adjustments) in PhotoLab. But I’m not sure the result will look good.
The camera sensor itself is often the origin of moire. If you have a camera with an antialias filter (optical low-pass filter) over the sensor, that will reduce moire when you take the photo.
I’ve found that moire is deadly in general and delete affected photos. Dealing with moire is mostly done during the demosaicking phase. Dedicated moire buttons sometimes work, sometimes don’t, and sometimes seem to work but add bad halos. Healing the moire is very photo by photo dependent. In some cases software A is better, in other cases it would be better to use software B, C, D, … .
You may try different demosaicking settings in RawTherapee, darktable, etc., or camera maker software, like NX Studio, DPP, Phocus,… . See Bayer moire | LibRaw for some old examples, which you may find useful in understanding RawTherapee or darktable settings. PhotoLab uses joint demosaicking-denoising algorithms (with DeepPRIME at least), so you may try to experiment with DeepPRIME settings. You may be lucky, but don’t expect to solve the problem in each case. You may have to use a pixel editor, one day per photo or so . In PhotoLab, don’t rely on preview – use the loupe tool (PL8) or exports.
For weddings, fashion, and similar, I just try to make many photos from different distances or horizon (level), if I suspect moire may come into play. But I had some problems only in 1/10,000 cases, although I used rather contrasty lenses in general (low-end lenses sort of add low pass filter, so moire is less probable with them)…
You may send the raw file to DxO – they seem to be interested in moire examples.
. In PhotoLab, don’t rely on preview – use the loupe tool (PL8) or exports.