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Inspiring
August 16, 2022
Question

Horrible gradient banding

  • August 16, 2022
  • 7 replies
  • 10725 views

This issue has been posted before here but since noone responded here it is again:

Out of nowhere I started to get horrible banding on gradients in Photoshop, Indesign and Illustrator, even when exporting.

Even the little gradient icons are less banded.

I'm on an M1 2022 Macbook Pro 16". 

I updated everything, no difference.

I opened in rosetta and normally, no difference.

 

Anyone know what's happening? Is it a bug?

I added some screenshots.

7 replies

NB, colourmanagement
Community Expert
August 17, 2022

How does it look onscreen when viewed at 100% 

 

 

I hope this helps
neil barstow, colourmanagement net :: adobe forum volunteer:: co-author: 'getting colour right'
google me "neil barstow colourmanagement" for lots of free articles on colour management

Inspiring
August 17, 2022

Thanks all for replying. 16 bit helped just a bit, I'm still getting banding in Illustrator and it's still not like I'm used to but I'm starting question my entire existence atm cause maybe it was always like this and I was living a lie, idk. It's mainly with dark gradients when using transparancy. It just makes a black band, then a very steep gradient of bands, not "gradual" at all as you can see in the linked image.

marliton
Community Expert
August 16, 2022

Hi. Does that happen if you export to any format? What about jpg?

 

Marlon Ceballos
TheDigitalDog
Inspiring
August 16, 2022

IF you see banding in high-bit (16-bit) images, zoomed at 1:1 (100%), the banding is due to the display path, not the data in your document. 

Download this test document, zoom in at 100%: see banding there? If so, it's the display path:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/s14f4w7dq85r7oo/10-bit-test-ramp.zip?dl=0

 

Author “Color Management for Photographers" & "Photoshop CC Color Management/pluralsight"
Inspiring
August 17, 2022

Funny enough I did not see any banding when I opened it in Photoshop but I did see terrible banding in the dropbox preview.

TheDigitalDog
Inspiring
August 17, 2022

@Asyouwere Medewerker-1 wrote:

Funny enough I did not see any banding when I opened it in Photoshop but I did see terrible banding in the dropbox preview.


Forget Dropbox, what matters is Photoshop or other applications that fully support a high-bit display path. The application (OS, video card, display) ALL play a role. 

So export this and view wherever you viewed the images you reported; do you see banding at 100%? 

Author “Color Management for Photographers" & "Photoshop CC Color Management/pluralsight"
Earth Oliver
Brainiac
August 16, 2022

you're applying the grad to a mask and masks are always 8 bit and have always banded like crazy. Not a bug and has needed to be improved for decades.

D Fosse
Community Expert
August 16, 2022

Masks aren't 8 bit, but selections are. A mask has the same bit depth as the document. Painting and gradients in a mask are always full bit depth.

 

You may need to watch this for masks made from selections, such as a standard luminance mask. The safe way to do this is to copy a full layer into the mask. A bit cumbersome, but can be actioned.

 

OTOH, I've never noticed any banding from a standard ctrl+alt+2 luminance mask. It would take an absolutely extreme adjustment to get banding from that, and in that case the file probably has deeper problems.

TheDigitalDog
Inspiring
August 16, 2022

@D Fosse wrote:

Masks aren't 8 bit, but selections are. A mask has the same bit depth as the document. Painting and gradients in a mask are always full bit depth.


 

Indeed and super easy to test:

Make a new document in 16-bit

Make a selection. Select>Save Selection; ask for a NEW document.

New Doc is in the same bit depth, Untagged Multichannel.

Masks are not always 8-bit. 

Author “Color Management for Photographers" & "Photoshop CC Color Management/pluralsight"
c.pfaffenbichler
Community Expert
August 16, 2022

Try working in 16bit. 

 

Could you please post a screenshot of the Gradient on white taken at View > 100% with the pertinent Panels (Toolbar, Layers, Channels, Options Bar, …) visible? 

Inspiring
August 16, 2022

Thanks for responding.

Here it is, there's less banding on white but still way too much.

Inspiring
August 16, 2022

In 16 bit there's less banding until I put transparancy. It all goes to hell.

Inspiring
August 16, 2022

Also, I've tried both on native screen and external screen.
The gradient tool has been acting strange anyway, where sliding the midpoint didn't do anything for example.