Weird Crop tool behaviour with 16-bit files

Report · Jun 01, 2012

Shadow areas of my 16-bit files show strange patterns if I use the Crop tool to rotate. I can also replicate the problem by doing the following:

Make a new empty 16-bit file in PS6 in RGB mode (File>New). Fill it with 100% black. Use the Crop tool and rotate to taste. Press Enter to accept the crop and zoom in to enjoy the black and grey noise patterning reminiscent of a man's suit. The Straighten tool will achieve the same result. Your suit pattern will vary according to the degree of rotation.

The problem goes away if you subsequently convert the file to 8-bit, or convert to any other mode (Greyscale, Lab, CMYK).

This patterning is easily visible at 100% view or less, and appears whether the View>Show>Pixel Grid option is on or off. It is decidedly NOT the pixel grid I am seeing.

This effect can be created with files from both my Canon and Hasselblad cameras.

I'm using a Mac Pro with OS10.6.8.

Report · Jun 01, 2012

Which version of Photoshop are you using?

And which options for the crop tool?

Report · Jun 01, 2012

Hello Chris

I'm using PS6. I invoke the Crop tool, Unconstrained, Delete Cropped Pixels unselected. Degree of rotation doesn't matter, though the pattern noise will vary with the degree of rotation.

I have now discovered that this weirdness ONLY happens with crop rotation of 16-bit files. If I open a 32-bit file and rotate, there is no patterning. If I convert this rotated crop to 16-bit, there is no change. But if I convert the file to 16-bit and THEN rotate, I get the noise again. 8-bit files do not show this behaviour. Saving rotated 16-bit files to TIFF and PSD preserves the patterning. Converting these files to jpeg (8-bit, obviously) removes the noise.

Report · Jun 04, 2012

Problem 'explained'!!! The video card is implicated.

Go to Preferences>Performance. If under Detected Graphics Processor, you have checked Use Graphics Processor, then the 16-bit file crop/rotation weirdness will occur as described above. If you leave it unchecked, then restart PS6, the gentlemen's suit patterns will no longer appear upon cropping/rotating.

Report · Jun 04, 2012

Which GPU are you using?

We'll have to investigate a bit more to isolate the cause.

Report · Jun 05, 2012

Chipset Model: ATI Radeon HD 4870

Type: GPU

Bus: PCIe

Slot: Slot-1

PCIe Lane Width: x16

VRAM (Total): 512 MB

Vendor: ATI (0x1002)

Device ID: 0x9440

Revision ID: 0x0000

ROM Revision: 113-B7710F-176

EFI Driver Version: 01.00.318

Report · Jun 05, 2012

I have now heard from owners of the ATI Radeon HD 5800 and the Nvidia 570M that they too suffer from this patterning b ehaviour.

Report · Jun 25, 2012

Any news, Chris?

Report · Jun 25, 2012

We have not been able to reproduce this problem.

But it could be something about your video card or driver version.

Report · Jun 25, 2012

It would be good to get more detail about what version of the driver you have.

In Photoshop do Help - System Info, copy, then post the info here.

-Noel

Report · Jun 26, 2012

Adobe Photoshop Version: 13.0 (13.0 20120315.r.428 2012/03/15:21:00:00) x64

Operating System: Mac OS 10.6.8

System architecture: Intel CPU Family:6, Model:26, Stepping:5 with MMX, SSE Integer, SSE FP, SSE2, SSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, HyperThreading

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Report · Jun 26, 2012

I'm using a Radeon 4870 here at home, with MacOS 10.6.8 -- and cannot reproduce those artifacts.

Report · Jun 26, 2012

Hi Chris

The problem has been replicated by other users with different cards (a ATI Radeon HD 5800, for example).

The key conditions are: 16-bit file, RGB, with 'Use Graphics Processor' selected in Preferences. Saving as TIFF or .psd preserves the patterning. Saving as jpeg removes it.

Report · Jun 26, 2012

For an example of the patterning, download the file (1mb) at http://www.erickellermanphotography.com/pattern.psd

Report · Jun 26, 2012

I assume I'm the affected user Eric is referring to with the Radeon HD 5800. I am running Windows 7 64x on an 17-2600 machine with 12GB RAM. The video-card driver is version 8.961.

This problem has rendered the crop and tilt function on CS6 more or less useless to me at present. It seems to be some kind of interference effect, because, for me, the patterning is remarkably uniform - long, intersecting lines very much like a ghost tartan watermark on the image. The attached image shows the patterning at 500%. This occurred on a 16-bit image after a minor crop and tilt. It is only really visible when zoomed in, but is definitely burned into the image. I use GPU acceleration in Normal mode.

Peter Rees

Report · Jun 26, 2012

Yes, this is the basic patterning I have too. The degree of rotation determines the final effect.

Report · Jun 26, 2012

Do you see a difference when you choose different settings in the Crop tool for [ ] Delete Cropped Pixels?

-Noel

Report · Jun 26, 2012

I don't know about Eric, but I don't have a Mac. Eric's pattern is certainly there on my screen, though. Oddly, when I select the pattern with the eyedropper, the info palette shows no difference in colour between the pattern and the background - both register as R0G0B0.

The issue occurs whatever you select under Delete Cropped Pixels. Here's another weird thing though - I just noticed on a layered image (multiple image layers) that the pattern wasn't visible until I deselected the top layer - in other words, it only affected the background layer, although the two layers are nearly identical (one is sharpened).

Peter

Report · Jun 26, 2012

If 'Delete Cropped PIxels' remains unchecked, the effect occurs. If it's checked, then rotation has no effect. And I just downloaded my own PSD file, and lo and behold! The noise is till there! No adjustment layer has any effect, as far as I can see. And I also fail to pick up any differences with the eye dropper.

I'm a Mac user.

Report · Jun 26, 2012

There is in implicational order at work: If 'Use Graphics Processor' is selected in Preferences>Performance, then not checking [ ] Delete Cropped Pixels produces the effect. If 'Use Graphics Processor' is not selected (after restarfting PS), then it doesn't matter whether 'Delete Cropped Pixels' is selected or not.

Report · Jun 26, 2012

Bingo! If I download my .psd file, and then open it in PS6 with 'Use Graphics Processor' unselected, guess what? Yes, NO patterning! So UGP is the cucial element.

Report · Jun 26, 2012

Seems to me it's a video driver issue then, and it may only be affecting your display when pixels extend beyond the boundary of the visible canvas.

I have an ATI Radeon HD 5670 with Catalyst 12.2 drivers (internally numbered 8.950.0.0) and don't see the problem.

Eric has an ATI Radeon HD 4670 with the drivers shipping with Apple's OSX 10.6.8 and DOES see the problem.
Peter has an ATI Radeon HD 5800 with Catalyst 12.4 drivers (internally numbered 8.961) and DOES see the problem.

My conclusion is that it's a problem recently introduced by ATI. This is not surprising, their recent driver versions have not worked well with Photoshop. The last good version was Catalyst 12.2.

Eric, you pretty much need to wait on Apple to provide new drivers with an OS update.

Peter, you could either uninstall Catalyst 12.4 and drop back to 12.2, or you could move forward to ATI's 12.6 beta version.

-Noel

Report · Jun 26, 2012

The artifacts are in the transparency channel, not the color channels.

Layer -> Layer Mask -> From transparency to get them into a visible mask

They do look like interpolation artifacts (like something used low precision math for the transparency channel).

But I still can't reproduce that on my system with Photoshop CS6 (10.6.8, Radeo 4870).

Chipset Model: ATI Radeon HD 4870

Type: GPU

Bus: PCIe

Slot: Slot-1

PCIe Lane Width: x16

VRAM (Total): 512 MB

Vendor: ATI (0x1002)

Device ID: 0x9440

Revision ID: 0x0000

ROM Revision: 113-B7710C-176

EFI Driver Version: 01.00.318

Report · Jun 26, 2012

Chris, did you have a look at my psd file with GPU checked in PS Prefs?

Report · Jun 26, 2012

You PSD is what I was referring to -- it's an example of artifacts in the transparency channel.

The artifacts are already present in that file, so I can't use it to reproduce anything.

I need to know how to get the artifacts to start with.

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Weird Crop tool behaviour with 16-bit files

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