Sleeping Beauty (handsome)

I've lurked and admired the images posted in this "sub"fourm. This is my first post and the first shot I took with my (then) new Nikkor 70-300 f4-5.6D ED. It had just arrived in the mail (last winter) and I didn’t have time to do much more than open the package before having to get Forest (my son in the photo) in the shower, get dinner cooking, etc. So after dinner Forest was watching some TV and I had some free time to “fondle” my new toy. It was night by then so I didn’t really plan to actually use it ‘till the next day. That’s when I looked up and saw Forest had fallen asleep on the couch and the light from the lamp where I was sitting across the room was brushing across him. I know this isn’t the best choice of lens for this type of shot but it was on the camera and I didn’t want to miss the moment so I grabbed my tripod and got this shot. Forest was dead to the world so the 4-second exposure worked (except if you look closely at his middle finger; it apparently twitched during the exposure).

A question: Why does this pbase image have severe posterization and/or JPEG artifacts when the original JPEG looks great? I have issues (kind word) with my images looking like relative crap after downloading to pbase. Anyway, comments and constructive criticism welcome.

D70; Nikkor 70-300 f4-5.6D ED; 70mm, 4 sec at f9.5

 

I work in PSCS. I shot this in JPEG; normally I shoot RAW but hadn't upgraded to CS with the RAW plugin at the time of this shot. And yes I have to admit the WB for this shot is ??? Anyway my normal workflow is geareed toward printing and then for the web I do the following:
1. Convert from my working Adobe RGB 1998 to sRGB.
2. Change from my working 300ppi to 72ppi.
3. Resize if necessary (e.g., to a max of 960 pixels for this forum).
4. Resharpen a little if needed (usually).
5. Save the image in JPEG format at “10” quality.

 

Gordon;
I like the tones of your version (what did you do?).

I will try your posting steps but what I find so frustrating is that after I go through my steps and check the resluting JPEG the image looks just fine. I download to pbase and the image quality often just falls apart.

 

Thank you Sir! You know, even my version is substantially "brighter" than the real life scene. One of the beautiful things about having gone digital is that you can quickly try an endless variety of "versions" of each image.