Hello, I was wondering if anyone had a workflow for fixing the rainbow color effect known as "Newton Rings" as exampled in these images. I can hand fix some of them OK, however, i was hoping to find a way, or workflow I could batch...I have thousands of these images with many Newton Rings on each. the rings are not that bad, these examples highlight the worst.
I have tried everything I can think of. The actual images I have are extremely Hi Rez.
I know the color variations are subtle, but its unacceptable, Also I MUST maintain the color integrity of the image (even though it isnt great) The Images are all going to be mosaic'd together (photostitched buttmatching) so any global color or tone changes will show up very noticably as a hard line on the sheet edge... So no "global" sheet color changes or tone changes...Ahaa the plot thickens.
Thanks
Sven
sgranlund@cinelineproductions.com

It doesn't work for every image, but it can help many of them. Duplicate the layer and change the blending mode to color. Do a gaussian blur till you don't see the effect any longer. Then apply a mask set to black and mask out the moire.

Thanks, I will give that a try. I was thinking the fix had to be somewhere in that area. I wish the colors were a little more prominate so i could automate a selection process.
Thanks again

This should work for all of your images with the problem.
- Convert to LAB color
- Ctrl+2 to select the A Channel
- Filter>Blur Gaussian Blur set at 30
- Ctrl+3 to select the B channle
- Ctrl + F to apply the same Gaussian Blur filter
- Ctrl + ~ to return to the composite image
- Edit>Convert to profile to return to RGB

Additional Options before you leave LAB color:
- Apply an S curve to boost the contrast
- Apply a Hue Sat adj layer to increase the darker greens

Samples attached in that order
Regards,
Murray

And, some the steps listed by mistermonday can be saved as an action, saving you time in the processing.

...something to consider perhaps.

Ahh. Undesirable, "old style" graphic arts effects. The good news is, with oil bubbles, moire patterns and flares, Newton rings are probably the best to have.

Nothing (that I know of) is going to be quick and painless. Because the actual detail is still there, albeit rainbow colored, I'd try something using the "color" setting/mode. Maybe cloning with color?

Might try suggesting some anti Newton ring powder for the next batch. If they still make it.

Good luck.

bp

Thanks you all...great ideas so far

If anyone else has any workflows that might better be automated to reudce the appearance of the Newton Rings, please continue to post. somewhere, out there, is the perfect fix to this annoying problem. If there were a way to isolate the colors, maybe by inverting a layer, adjusting levels on a channel untill the Rings stood out, then using a layer to mask itself???? I am not sure...The perfect compromise is out there.
Keep up the great ideas.

Sven,
The rings are not in the same place all the time and the colors vary. Consequently you need to use a technique which is global. Blurring the color channels in LAB will not affect the detail but will reduce the effect. You can very easily create an action and run it on an entire folder of images. That is probably as automated as you will get without having to fiddle with each image individually. The results are not perfect but there is a trade off between that and amount of time spent per image.
Regards, Murray

Thank you for your help, I think this will work. You all are great.