Participating Frequently

Answered

PS 20.0.1 terrible banding with gradients

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
December 19, 2018
5 replies
1892 views

Hello, I am just noticing a pretty bad issue when working on photos in PS after the latest update. First the brushes seem laggy at times and cursors disappear while using for a few seconds and the program seems to "Think" then re-appear. But more importantly I am experiencing pretty sever banding when dragging out gradients. be them linear or radial, regardless of screen zoom level. For example, if I duplicate an image layer, change the blend mode to screen, or multiply to either help darken or lighten an area or portion of the image, and add a layer mask and use a gradient on the mask, that is when I will get a terrible and noticeably visible banding through the transition. I was curious if anyone else is experiencing this or if there is a setting I need to address. I am working on a 5k Imac late 2014 that is running Mojave 10.14.1 with a 4GHz i7 with 32GB memory and an AMD Raedon R9 M295x graphics card. Prior versions of PS were not exhibiting this behavior. The banding remains, but will change its spread when feathering in properties is altered, or the opacity of the layer is changed as well. It will also get locked into the file when flattened and resized or saved and remains visible. I have attached a screen shot which hopefully can show this well. Thank you in advance for any help or insight anyone may be able to offer.

This topic has been closed for replies.

Correct answer D Fosse

You need to check with 16 bit files.

Jpeg is restricted to 8 bits and will show banding regardless, to greater or lesser extent.

The point is that your whole display subsystem works at 8 bit depth, so that's where banding can happen.

Bob_Hallam

Legend

As was stated above both 8 bit files and jpeg images can cause banding, but more so the jpeg process. If you work in RAW file format then move to 16 bit for the tweaks and finally then make a jpeg at 8 bits, only after you are satisfied with the color and quality of the image. That is the optimum workflow. 8 bits are adequate for most vignetted images, but sometimes a bit of visual noise is needed to disguise transitions in subtle tones.

ICC programmer and developer, Photographer, artist and color management expert, Print standards and process expert.

C

cgaribaldiAuthor

Participating Frequently

I also just tried changing and trying all of the performance settings, including basic, checking the native OS GPU acceleration on and off, as well as fully disabling "use graphics processor" option. In each instance I quit and restart PS open the same file with it layers, drag a gradient on the mask and the banding is there same as before. I am stumped

C

cgaribaldiAuthor

Participating Frequently

Nope, turning on the legacy compositing in performance did not help it at all. I did restart PS too after turning on that option. Im stumped.

A

Anonymous

Hi

Try setting the drawing mode to basic in preferences > performance > advanced settings to see if that make a difference

D Fosse

Community Expert

Generally, any banding on screen is in your display system. That includes the video card and driver (and incidentally, the bug that Ged points to is also GPU-related).

As long as you're working in 16 bit depth, this is not in the image data, and Photoshop is not doing it - except where PS hands functions over to the GPU.

If this started with Mojave, and you are confident you didn't see this before, on the same hardware - then most likely it's the video driver (which on Mac is delivered as an integral part of the OS).

C

cgaribaldiAuthor

Participating Frequently

Well, what I have jsut done to try and see if its just my hardware or not, was to flatten the image with the banding and save it. when the same file is opened and viewed in Lightroom, the banding is still there. I then exported it from lightroom to my desktop and its visible in preview on the mac. I then sent the same file to my other macbook pro which is running PS CC 19.1.1 and the banding is visible when opened on that machine. and just to try to cross all my tees, I emailed the file (jpg with no resize) to myself and opened it up and viewed the image on my iphone, (Not that its a benchmark for viewing photos) and the banding is visible there as well. So its like this banding is being baked into the actual file itself and remains regardless of hardware or device its viewed on. Any thoughts? or am I not trying to eliminate obvious issues incorrectly?

D Fosse

Correct answer

Community Expert

You need to check with 16 bit files.

Jpeg is restricted to 8 bits and will show banding regardless, to greater or lesser extent.

The point is that your whole display subsystem works at 8 bit depth, so that's where banding can happen.

A

Anonymous

Hi

A lot of people are experiencing brush lag with PS CC2019 on Mojave, some have been able to alleviate the problem by hidding the rulers.

For the banding issues try enabling this option in preferences and restarting PS

C

cgaribaldiAuthor

Participating Frequently

Hello! Thank you for the quick reply! Yes, I read that tip about hiding the rulers, and I have them turned off, but still get the lagging. Its not all the time, but happens frequently enough to be annoying. I will try your suggestion about the legacy setting and report back shortly.

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded