Strange Blurry/Smooth Patches in High Contrast With Regular Texture at 200% View....

[lilCystar]

Hi All,

I recently took a look at some of my artwork in Photoshop at 200% View. It was riddled with irregular shaped blurred/smooth, almost glossy, patches that stood out sorely against the picture's regular texture.

I want to determine what I am doinf that causes this as I cannot correct it perfectly and wish to stop doing whatever is causing it.

It occurrs more in areas I've edited a lot. I don't use blurs. I do use Free Transorm's Warp Fucnction and the basic Free Transform quite frequently.. Also, I use Generative Fill a lot, but I've checked and it seems to mimic the texture around it. Did apple a Texture Filter, "Canvas", at a light setting and notice faint horizontal lines at 200% but I think that is all this is doing....

Other than that, can't think of what could be causing this.

Anyone have any ideas?

I'd truly appreciate any feedback!

[c.pfaffenbichler]

Could you please post screenshots taken at View > 100% with the pertinent Panels (Toolbar, Layers, Options Bar, …) visible? 

It seems like you might have clone stamped or painted atop the Filter. 

Did you apply it as a Smart Filter? 

[lilCystar]

Hi, thanks for the reply!

Here is a screenshot at 100% .  In the past, I've done things so they look good at 'Print Size' (after making sure Photoshop is showing me actual print size) but now realize people might look at the files they bought at closer sizes,  and don't want a terrible 'patchy' appearance. This example shows at print size too, although not all smooth patches are visable at that level, only 100% or higher.

Do you happen to know why 100% is larger than print size? When are things displayed at what Photoshop calls 100%?

I am actually kinda embarrassed at how many layers I have, been a bit of a perfectionist on this one... and you'd only see a few on the screen at a time anyway, so not showing that panel in the shot. Tools only shows current tool and not sure what you meant by 'Options Bar'...

It may be that I edited on top of the merged layer I applied Canvas texture to, period. Generative fill seems to include that texture in it's productions but maybe all editing done after the texture apply will look wrong.  I will wait to apply that at the end in future.

Hope that is the reason, so I can avoid this again. Did not use Clone Stamp. Mainly cut out, moved  and transformed/warped some things. Anything else you can think of to avoid this?

Appreciate the help!

[D Fosse · Accepted solution]

Yes, the canvas filter (or some other filter) has probably ended up in the wrong place in the layer stack.

Also note that generative fill has a resolution limit, and if the area is larger it will be upsampled and therefore soft. That's probably not the problem here as these are small areas, but keep it in mind.

[lilCystar]

I did apply the canvas filter to a merged layer when I had thought I was finished, but kept editing on top of that afterall.

Hopefully this is the reason. I can avoid that in future.

Also, will check all my edits, including generative fill, at 200% from now on. People who buy this may end up looking at it that large and I don't want them to see a horrible 'patchy' appearance.

Appreciate the assistance, thanks!  🙂

[c.pfaffenbichler]

I did apply the canvas filter to a merged layer when I had thought I was finished, but kept editing on top of that afterall.

You may want to consider converting the whole Layer-stack to a Smart Object and applying global Filters to that. 

This has a price in size and performance but applying Filters destructively to the composite content is often imprudent. 

[lilCystar]

Have never used Smart Objects and do not know what a 'global' filter is.... does that kind of filter work without having to merge first?

Will doing this correct anything at this point with the current work or do you mean I should do this in future?

Appreciate the assistance!

[c.pfaffenbichler]

That concerns the future. 

By »global filter« I mean a Filter that is applied to the whole Layer/Image. 

Converting several Layers to a Smart Object together means you do not have to wastefully merge them. 

Just try it. 

[lilCystar]

Thanks!

[Sef McCullough]

Hey Cynthia,

I notice that Gen Fill will often leave textures looking smoothed out, similar to what I'm seeing there. But as others noted, there are lots of different ways to inadvertently smooth textures. Warping, Liquefying, cloning, healing, can all mush texture if you aren't careful, expecially texture as sharp as this.

When texture is important, I almost always frequency separate my file. But FS is more advanced and takes time to learn. The overall concept is good to know though - if you had all of your canvas texture on a separate layer above your artwork, you'd never really have to worry about smoothing it out!

The easiest route is just to pay close attention to the areas you edit, don't work too zoomed out bc you could miss when the texture smooths.

If you can match the texture you want via that Canvas filter, you could apply it to a 50% gray layer, set it to Overlay mode, and maybe brush it in with a mask.

Let us know how it goes!
-Sef

[c.pfaffenbichler]

I notice that Gen Fill will often leave textures looking smoothed out, 

Especially if the Selection is larger than 1024px in either direction. 

[lilCystar]

Hi Sef, thanks for the reply!

Yes, I am checking all my generative fills (and other edits) at 200% view now. It takes more time, because most edits need to be made zoomed out to see the overall effect on the picture and you have to keep changing your view setting back and forth, but I'd rather be sure. I also catch any hard edges of things I've cut out, moved, and thought I had blended perfectly. Yesterday I noticeced generative fill was including the canvas texture in its results about half the time. Sometimes it created smooth areas and I applied the canvas texture to them - but it still could not be made to match perfectly.

Sadly, the image had to be thrown away. Their were so many smooth patches, and long streaks too, that they could not be blended in. I doubt they would of shown if printed but people might see them on their screen view and it would look awful. I tried what you suggested about brushing them in with a mask but results were not perfect. Good idea though.

I know nothing about FS. But you reccomended doing what I described above anyhow, as FS takes time to learn.

So my problem likely resulted from gen fill and warping above the textured layer. ( I did not liquify, clone, or heal.) From now on I will save  my finished work as (as a .jpg as I have to  transmit it around) and open that seperately in Photoshop to apply the canvas texture. That way my original file never has to be merged at all.

Hard lesson. Many hours of work had to be thrown away. Live and learn I guess.

Thanks for your thought ful input - its good to know why this happened! 🙂

EDIT: I just took a look at a different picture I did a few weeks ago at 200%. There are smooth patches in it and I know all I did in those areas was use generative fill.  It is a 3ft wide image, so gen fill areas were fairly large pixel wise. I did not use canvas texture on this one, gen fill just looks smooth compared to the original image. In the screenshot (100% View) you can see the gen-fill grass on the left and the original grass on the right.

Guess generative fill can't be used for big areas at all - even if you haven't textured your image first. It leaves, a plain to see, hard edge to the blurry/smooth section of image it fills. This is at 100% view!

I worked on this one only checking it at print size view, and it looks fine there. Do you suppose it will print okay? Even at 36" wide?

I will apply a little noise to the areas and perhaps this will help enough I won't have to lose this one. But there are so many areas in the tall grass, I might end up throwing this one away too 😞 Now I have to check ALL the work I have in my shop and am quite frightened of what I will find.

[Sef McCullough]

Aw man, bummer. Yeah I see that and it's consistent with Gen Fill. Although, we now have the Enhance Detail feature which I have found to improve the fidelity of some of those soft results. Have you been using that on your generated patches? It's the little icon in the top left corner of your generated thumbnails in the Properties panel.

I'm guessing these are fine art prints so yeah unfortunately it may be visible 😞

What I would try:
Generate a good strong grain layer over the whole image. It'll give the illusion of more sharpness and uniformity. I use Camera Raw as a smart filter on a 50% gray layer set to linear light.

Merge visible to a new layer, convert to smart object, run High Pass, set the layer to Soft Light or Overlay, brush into the softer areas to sharpen them. Adjust the High Pass smart filter to taste.

Here's a link to my actions for those 2:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/j7awsf6ma5ssclg297g14/Sef-s-Grain-Sharpen.atn?rlkey=1r59wyy54gznxzi9r...

See if that helps?

Oh, also rasterize those Gen Fill layers once you get what you like. It'll keep your files lighter.

[lilCystar]

Hi there,

Thanks for the help, really appreciate it!

Yes, am selling these for fine art printing at 36" wide (largest option). Can't have obvious texure dfferences that even make the selection outline of generative fill areas visible.

I looked at the 25 paintings I have added as products in my shop at 100% view (instead of print size view, which is as large as I looked when creating them) and I found:

• 3 images are riddled with highly visable, high-gloss, plastic-like-smooth patches where generative fill has not matched the texture of the picture beneath it. These are simply garbage.  😞  (Example in screenshot below)
•  1 has many smooth patches. May or may not be blendable. May be garbage too.
• 6 have a few small smooth gen fill patches, probably fixable.
•  14 have NO smooth texture patches anywhere, even though gen fill was used on them.

It seems almost entirely random whether generative fill results are visibly too smooth or they mimic the texture of the image below it.

(Can only be certain of one thing. It is simply no good on 'painted style tall grass', no matter how many times it's tried, on new or or old image files. So, no more grass in my work. It takes too long to untangle the mess AI makes in the original, since I need to cut out and move/warp/blend individual blades of grass.)

ALL my competition sells artwork teeming with AI 'glitches' such as stems & branches floating in mid air, deformed body parts, deformed cut-in -half flowers, flowers with jaggedly torn petal edges and holes in them, furniture melted together, plants growing out of window panes and book covers and the list goes on and on. They get hundreds of glowing 5 star reviews and have between 10,00 and 50,000 sales with this stuff. Don't ask me how. So.... since I paint out/fix all these errors before deeming my work salable, I'm going to make sure these patches are invisable at print size and 100% view and call that acceptable. Originally I wanted it to look uniform at 200% view, but if they zoom that far and see patches of irregular texture, I'm going to live with it. 

As long it  prints beautifully,  then I will be satisfied with the product I'm offering. I think, if nothing is weird at 100%, it should print fine, as that is larger than print size view. Do you think that's accurate?

In future, will check at 200% view, if texture blends, after each use of gen fill.

And am going to shell out some money and have one image, with patches visible at 200%, and not at 100%, printed 36"wide. This will give me confidence in the texture uniformity and color correctness when printed. (or not)

Will be trying your suggested method to add texture to the smooth patches in ones without too many fixes needed. Thanks for outlining that process! Might be better than adding noise. 

Will let you know how it goes.

Wish I had of known this could happen with gen fill beforehand. Maybe this thread will alert some others before they get too far.  Live and learn. 

Cheers 🙂

[Sef McCullough]

Well I appreciate your diligence in giving a high-end finished product. It will set you apart.

I agree with you, if it looks good at 100% I'd call it good. The real test will be to get printed proofs out and see if it shows up at all. Remember the average viewing distance of your customers. Rarely is somebody going to be looking at the finished piece on the wall at the same distance you are from the screen.

And they surely aren't going to break out a loupe 🙂 

I think now you know the cause, you'll be able to confidently use gen fill for all the stuff it's amazing at.

Thanks for posting, this will be valuable for someone else to read. Cheers!