Horizontal Lines in dark spots of images taken with studio lighting.

[mikew09]

I don't see them. I am using a good quality calibrated monitor. I do see some lack of colour consistency in the black area in as much as lighter smudge. It looks to be some reflection of light off the curve of the back ground as it goes from horizontal to vertical but I had that issue also and it was attributed to a smudge of lubricant on my sensor.

Have you tried doing a shot to check for sensor dust and other sensor issues?

Actually, just checked the shot on my laptop (un-calibrated and a lower resolution) and now I see what you are saying. Actually looks a little like over processing but I wouldn't think that would be the case based on the style of shot.

Be interested to see what the out come is.

[AutumnCurl]

Thanks guys, my hubby thinks I've lost it lol because he can't see it, but then he sometimes loses his wallet on the coffee table..

Yeah its very odd, and i think its my laptop because i can not see it else where, i will do some more tests and also a print test.

As i have a macbook pro, i did find on some mac forums that recent updates have made graphics cards show some lines, however much heavier than the ones i can see. So i might do a reinstall and see what happens, I'm due for a computer upgrade as this one is a 2010 model.

The light isn't a smudge its just how the lights were placed, to take those shots, i just unpacked the gear and set it up and checked everything was working. i did take some of my cat, but i didn't think posting a photo of a cat with invisible lines that only i can see was a good idea

[arthurking83]

Again, going with Mike's reply, I'd say it's posterisation, but not real posterisation of the image.

Poserisation in an image is supposed to be a condition where the gradient of colour is supposed to be too great for the output device to display.
That is real posterisation is something that will most likely be present in a lot quality monitor, a high quality monitor and also in the print(most likely).
It'll be due to a conversion from one format(usually raw) to a lower quality format(usually jpg).
In the lower quality format the data capability will be much lower(eg 8bit) and the colour gamut will also be lower too.
So as an example of how this can manifest is going from a massive data stream of a D800 raw file in 14bit(eg. 50Mb!!) down to a low quality sRGB jpg file of about 5Mb(for an equivalent pixel dimension image)
You've compressed the image massively(both in terms of data and visual ability) and basically speaking ... something has to give.

The other type of posterisation is dependent on the viewing device, and as I said before, is not really there(in the image).
I had this a few years back on some images, where I noticed very dark blue skies looking for all the world quite massively blotchy.
When I printed out the images, this blotchiness in the blue wasn't there.
I then added another screen to my PC, and not only did the image look different(as expected), but the blotchiness in the other screen wasn't present.
(the other screen was an old CRT, which usually display colour a lot nicer than low to mid range digital screens).
The print matched the CRT display perfectly tho!.

So as Mike can see it on one screen but not the other, is a clue the fact that some screens display images differently that others do.. and so you notice stuff that is not there(in the actual file).

FWIW: the posterisation that I can see in that area you've highlighted in the image with the red square looks like wood grain. The colours that I can see tend to go from an almost purple tint to a slight green tint to a more green tint at the right most grain line.

The only form of posterisation you should worry about is the one that is real.
That is, the type that actually affects the print version of the image.
The only way I know of understanding the difference between the two types is in how the two different image types display on your screen(via your preferred editing software).
First of all your editing software needs to be colour space aware!!.
I've never seen this pseudo posterisation in any of the raw versions of the affected files, and only in the jpgs derivative files.
Usually these files need to be compressed more than the average, and this may be why they display this pseudo posterisation problem.
I really don't know why it happens, and the occurrence of this effect has always been random(for me) in the few times I've seen it.

There is no exif data in the two images you've posted or linked too, so we have no idea of which software they were editing with, how much they were compressed, what colourspace they were saved in .. etc, etc.
Being predominantly black, the conversion of the images into the jpg format(knowing that jpg is a highly compressed format!!) what usually happens is that in the conversion to jpg, the software is 'careless' in it's understanding of subtle black tones.
(very dark blue is very nearly close to black in terms of RGB values, and I think this is what's happened to my images on those occasions).

I hate to admit it, but I suppose I should, but as my preferred editing software is CaptureNX2, the only times I've seen this issue in my images has been due to this software.
So I'm interested to know which software you choose to edit with too.
But I don't blame the software as such, as the issue is random and occasional, so if it were a problem with the software, it'd happen more regularly.