Jackdaw strange effect

[Iain Barker]

When viewing this image in Lightroom this image looks fine but when I export it to jpg it seems to get a strange posterized effect. I am not sure what is causing it and can't seem to fix it.
My only adjustments are to white balance, highlights, shadows, whites and blacks. Plus a crop to about 70% of FF.

Nikon D7000, 300mm f4 AF + 1.4 tc; 1/1000 sec f7.1 ISO800;

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

[Diane Miller]

I can't say I see anything odd here. If it is true posterization, you'll see it in the histogram when you bring the JPEG back into PS. It will have a comb-like appearance, but it would take a rather dramatic dropout of tonal levels to see it in this BG. But the histogram here looks beautifully smooth.

My only comment would be that it looks as if the focus point fell in front of the bird, and the grass might be a little over-saturated. But that doesn't answer your question.

[Tobie Schalkwyk]

Not sure what you mean by 'posterized' but check your 'Sharpen for' export setting and see if it makes a difference if you change it to something else (I usually use 'Screen'). A heavy crop might introduce noise when converting to .jpeg but if you only dropped off 30% it should be fine.

I agree with Diane - focus seems to be somewhere other than the face so if you want to do some additional work you might want to sharpen the area around the eye.

[Iain Barker]

When I view the image on my phone it looks ok so I am wondering if it is something with my monitor or computer. I tried no sharpening at all on export and that didn't make any difference. I will recheck on my work computer.
I agree with the focus being slightly off and the grass being over saturated.

Sent from my GT-I8190N using Tapatalk

[Iain Barker]

Looking at this image at work it looks fine as well. It must be something on my computer at home. I will see if I can improve the processing now I know it is exporting correctly.

[Iain Barker]

Here is a quick repost with the saturation of the greens reduced, slightly more sharpening and a little clarity to try and get a bit more detail on the head. I don't think I can do much more with the focus not being quite right on the head.

Thanks for you advice on the problems with my display which seem to be my monitor calibration.

[Diane Miller]

I like it! And glad you got the monitor adjusted -- calibration is an easy thing to let slip out of adjustment. Don't change brightness with the monitor controls or the calibration is no longer valid.