What are the red dots?

[arith]

[davidedric]

Steve, maybe I'm being slow - but where are the red dots of which you speak?

Dave

[Dave B]

Dave ...... If you click the image and then make it full size you can see them around the neck area and on the 'forehead' above the bill .......... but I've no idea what they are.

Dave B.

[arith]

You just have to look at them full size Dave. They are most easily seen around the kneck bit they are everwhere. Couldn't be a fault with processing could it?

[Donald]

One of the advantages of being colour blind - damned if I can see them.

However, go up to full size and at the left hand edge (as we look at it) of the bird's neck and head, there looks to be something like a wave. Now, if this is an artifact of processing, then I suppose the red dots, wherever they are, could be the same, could they?

[davidedric]

Thanks. I was looking on my tablet. On my proper monitor I can see them well. They are best viewed along the birds flanks, where you can see that they are polychromatic rather than red. Makes me think maybe some kind of chromatic aberration/fringing?

[Geoff F]

Reflection on a few shiny scales of the feather at a particular light angle? Appears red at this angle instead of white. Similar effect to red eye?

Something which I have encountered previously on occasions. Some lenses seem worse than others. Or perhaps I just use those lenses in those conditions.

Easy to clone over though.

[FootLoose]

It took me a while to see them, but they are all over the bird. I can't see any in the background though. The 'halo' around the goose's head and elswhere suggest some post processing to me. Could the red dots be artifacts?

[arith]

Cheers Greg, Geoff, Dave and Donald. I think and hope it is the processing, they appear clearer when sharpening using Topaz Detail. Couldn't have been in a fight with a shotgun could it.



RAW no sharpening, looks like Topaz makes artifacts.

[Andrew1]

I must go with Dave on this one. With the right angle of incident light you can get specular highlights that are blown out. With the absence of any dominant RGB colour the chromatic aberrations have some place to manifest themselves.

[FootLoose]

RAW no sharpening, looks like Topaz makes artifacts.

The halo has disappeared too

[arith]

Cheers Andrew, that's right Greg in fact Topaz Detail3 isn't supposed to do that and Andrew is right since I raised the shadows as well as sharpen. Looks better with nothing done.

[MilT0s]

I have seen this kind of noise sometimes when I brighten too much some shadow areas. It's different than standard color noise since it's not random distribution.

In my case it's not a optical effect for sure and it really looks like that in your image although I can't explain why it appears in a well exposed photo. I use a similar to yours camera (Canon 60D) so I suspect it's a Canon thing.

What's for sure is that it gets much worse after sharpening.

[arith]

Thanks Miltos I'm keeping an eye out for it now.

[arith]

I tried a different processor, DPP. Can't see the dots but it works differently.