Topographic like lines that show up on computer but also when printed.

Question

Looking to see if anyone has figured out a solution to this issue I’ve recently found. At my job I am responsible for managing the marketing materials. I have noticed that in last years catalog some of the images seem to have these weird topographic looking lines on them. They show up in InDesign so I originally thought it had something to do with my screen but they also appear to show up when printed. They only appear at a certain zoomed in distance. Zoomed all the way in or out it doesn't appear though. The images this happens to are all JPEGs but not all the JPEGs have this issue. I can’t change the format or quality of them as they were uploaded to the server that holds them a while ago, years in fact. I've attached the image below as an example.

Conrad_C · Answer

That’s called a moiré pattern. It’s basically an interference pattern that happens when the frequency of an image’s grid of pixels interferes with a frequency of a texture in an image, and that math can also interfere with the screen’s own grid of pixels. The reason you see it at specific zoom levels is that is when the frequencies interfere with the display’s pixel grid in a way that’s more visible.

Some cameras try to minimize moiré patterns by having an anti-aliasing filter. For images you’ve already taken, some software has a moiré pattern reduction feature. For example, Adobe Camera Raw, Lightroom Classic, and Lightroom have one. But when I tried it on your image, it didn’t help much…it might be that it should be resolved at an early stage of editing, probably best to address it in an original raw file if available.

This link talks about it. I’m not saying it’s the best tutorial, it was just one I found during a quick search.

https://photoeducationbydaniel.com/strange-colored-patterns-on-clothing-its-moire-patterns/

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