Does the GPU effect what Photoshop draws?

Question

For example, if you have a pure black-white gradient, you will see banding unless you have:
10 bpc monitor, cable that supports 10bpc, graphics card that outputs 10bpc with OpenGL(Quadro or Radeon Pro), 10bpc enabled in your graphics card settings, and 30 bit monitor turned on in Photoshop->Preferences->Performance

Now, say you don't have the graphics card component. You will see some banding if you draw a pure black-white gradient. Does this impact what is actually in the file? In other words, if you were to then install a 10bpc graphics card and reopen that file, would the banding still be there, or would it go away?

I believe it will go away, because the graphics card/monitor/etc only impact what you see on the screen, not what is actually in the file. But my 10bpc graphics card blew up so I can't verify myself.

D Fosse · Accepted Answer

In a 16 bit file, there is no banding in the data. Any banding you see there is in the display system.

With a small qualifier. Selections are always 8 bit, so if you have a mask based on a selection - even if the mask itself is 16 bit - and you then use that mask to make an extreme adjustment, that might result in banding in some cases. But it will never be as pronounced as in a natively 8-bit file.

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