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George36740360i3pc
Participating Frequently
April 15, 2024
Question

No banding artificts in ACR, then banding in Photoshop

  • April 15, 2024
  • 2 replies
  • 580 views

Hi,

I've spent the entire day reading forums and re-processing and trying to figure this out, but I'm at a loss.

I have a number of eclipse photos from last week. Camera color options are sRGB and Adobe RGB; I shoot RAW in sRGB. I then open the files in Adobe Camera Raw, 16-bit with color space as ProPhoto. I do a bit of processing in ACR, including noise reduction and the photos look great at 100%. I then open the dng file to Photoshop (from ACR) and either (1) I get banding artifacts when viewing the dng in PS at any zoom including 100% (and with no tools selected/in progress at the time) OR (2) the dng looks great in PS but the final jpeg has banding. I have turned off GPU in Photoshop. I convert the profile to sRGB in PS, and then Save As to output as jpeg.

If instead of ACR I use Lightroom to do the processing and noise reduction, the photos look great at 100% until I export as jpegs - at which point there is banding again.

From what I've read online, this shouldn't happen working in 16-bit space unless there's bit a move to 8-bit space somewhere along the line. I haven't done this, as far as I can see.

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

D Fosse
Community Expert
D FosseCommunity Expert
Community Expert
April 15, 2024

It would be useful to see screenshots.

 

If you're working in 16 bit depth, any banding you see is in your display system. That's where the conversion to 8 bit depth happens (unles you have a 10-bit capable display). This could be a defective monitor profile.

 

While ACR and Photoshop both end up in the same monitor profile, the source color spaces are different. One has a linear tone response curve, the other gamma 1.8. So they're not the same.

 

See if you get any banding with Adobe RGB. ProPhoto is generally prone to banding because with the extremely large gamut, the distance between the discrete numerical steps is longer. Converting that to 8 bits in the display path can easily produce artifacts.

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    George36740360i3pcAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    April 15, 2024

    Thank you for the reply. To my surprise, it looks like the problem is something to do with my Dell U2719DC monitor (attached to my Mac Mini M1). I gave up trying to edit and uploaded to Flickr, and I only see the banding when I view the files on the Dell monitor, but not on my Dell XPS or Samsung smartphone.

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    George36740360i3pcAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    April 15, 2024

    If interested, the images can be found here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/gstamets/albums/72177720316235277

    None of the partial eclipses show any banding on the monitor that seems to be the culprit, but most of the totality images do - some very badly.

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    George36740360i3pcAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    April 15, 2024

    Added detail: when I create a jpeg of a particular photo as above on my Dell XPS 13 (9370, 1080p not 4K) laptop and view it on the laptop, there is no banding; when I open that same file on my Mac Mini M1 w/ Dell U2719DC monitor (which is an Ultrasharp monitor), I see significant banding. I'm about to pull my hair out.

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