How to create a gradient without banding?

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
December 15, 2021
2 replies
2607 views

Hey guys,
I'm a 3D artist and want to edit my character in Photoshop.
For this I want to have a grey color with a gradiente as background.
What I did was to create one solid color and chosing grey. Then I add a second solid color and chose a darker grey/black. I add a layer mask to the darker color, and use the gradiente tool to get the gradiente I want.
The Problem is, that I get heavy banding on this gradiente. I'm using Photoshop not regularly, so this might be a beginner mistake. Before this just happened to me when I was not in 16 bit, but I am.
The wierd thing is, that the vigniette you can add in the camera raw settings is super smooth with no real bending.
How should I best add my gradient to avoid banding?

Windows

This topic has been closed for replies.

D Fosse

Community Expert

As long as you're working with 16 bit data, any banding you see is in your display system. The solution, as Ranjisha says, is to add a little noise.

A standard display pipeline operates at 8-bit depth (or even in some cases 6-bit + dithering). If you have a 10-bit capable monitor/video card, you don't see this banding.

DerMaltAuthor

New Participant

Hey, thanks for the answer. So what is the difference between to the camera raw vigniette? Why is that displayed smoothly? I thought about the hardware stuff as well, since this is the problem for a lot of people, when I google this problem. But the fact the camera raw vigniette work perfectly fine was for me a reason against that.

But I will look at some tutorials explaining how I can add noise. We'll see if that helps.

I'm actually not sure if I have an 8 or 10 bit monitor. On Amazon it says nothing about that, so I assume it is 8-bit.

D Fosse

Community Expert

I know that Lightroom uses dithering to display images, so you don't see any banding there. I would assume that applies to ACR as well, since they share the same processing engine (ACR is built into Lightroom).

Photoshop can also optionally use dithering in gradients, but only for 8-bit images. That function is disabled for 16 bit documents.

Only a few high-end monitors are 10 bit capable. 8 bit is the standard.

Ranjisha Sengupta

Brainiac

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out.
I understand that you're getting heavy banding on this gradient. However, it is not a problem - it is a result of having very smooth gradations display or printed on systems with quantization levels (how many bits are displayed/printed) that cause visible banding.And the solution is always the same: add enough noise to make the banding invisible.
Try this suggestion and let us know if that helps.
Thanks,

Ranjisha

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