How to remove horizontal banding caused by LED lighting

[Mario_tr]

Hi, does anybody knows how to remove horizontal banding caused by LED lighting when we shooted using silent mode with mirrorless cameras ?

does you know a method using Photoshop to do this? Or a photoshop or lightroom plug-in that works for this problem?

this is an example of the problem:

Picture was taken with a Sony A6300 digital camera.

[AnthonyK]

From Tim Grey's newsletter today:  In addition to using the mechanical shutter rather than the electronic shutter when photographing a moving subject, you may want to use the mechanical shutter when photographing under artificial light to avoid potential banding in the photo.

So this does look like a camera issue related to the use of the electronic shutter.  Switching to mechanical shutter might not always be an option, but it might be a possible solution in some situations.

[Lumigraphics]

Some cameras have flicker reduction built in. 

[Tiffany Katz]

I had this happen to me during a poorly lit wedding ceremony with my Nikon Z mirrorless which I use for it's silent shutter and my prime lens large aperture.  With all these things working for me, using a 1/200 shutter speed at ISO 1600 I got the same banding result as shown.  I'm afraid that I may also have to spend an eternity fixing these.  I couldn't even have used my own light source to fix this problem beforehand as it would have been in the way of a very cramped venue.  Would love to see all the responses on this 

[D Fosse]

There is no easy fix for this. You need to test shutter speeds in advance, prior to the event, and find a safe range outside of the LED flickering.

Or use the mechanical shutter whenever possible. On my Sonys I have the silent shutter on a very easily accessible programmable button, so that I can switch very quickly, without even taking my eye off the viewfinder. This way I can sneak in the mechanical shutter whenever the sound level allows.

Fixing this after the fact is doable, but very time-consuming. This is something an AI-algorithm could be really useful for.

[wjsweenstr]

I have had success using the Neat Video noise reduction plugin for video footage. It's algorithm seems to understand the banding pattern in still images as noise and is able to eliminate it with one click. neatvideo.com

[keil_4931]

Hey! Yeah, that horizontal banding from LED lights is a pretty common problem, especially when shooting in silent or electronic shutter mode with mirrorless cameras like your Sony A6300. It happens because the LED lights flicker faster than the camera sensor reads the image, which causes those annoying bands.

One way to fix it in Photoshop is to use the Dust & Scratches filter along with some noise reduction:

1. First, duplicate your photo layer so you keep the original safe.
2. Then go to Filter > Noise > Dust & Scratches. Try setting the radius around 3 to 5 and the threshold around 10 to 20. This helps smooth out the bands.
3. Next, go to Filter > Noise > Reduce Noise to clean up what’s left.
4. If the photo looks a bit soft after this, you can add a layer mask and paint over the parts you want to keep sharp or just lower the effect’s opacity.

This usually helps a lot without messing up the details. Another option is to carefully use the Dodge and Burn tools at a low strength to lighten or darken the bands manually it takes a bit more time, but gives you more control.

Check out the result below!

[Glenn 8675309]

That looks pretty good.  I'm lazy:  I just used the remove tool and it did a pretty good job on what I did do.