night photography

[Pedro Jimenez]

I'm having some trouble getting this photo the way I want it. I'm getting this really bad banding in the sky and I can't figure out how to fix this. Any suggestions? Or reasons why this is happening?

 

[Ido]

Are you shooting raw and JPEG?
If raw, how do you convert to JPEG? (What are your "export" settings in the raw converter?)
If JPEG, what quality settings did you choose in the camera?
Did the banding show up after you brightened the image a bit, or is it straight-out-of-camera?

Banding is often an artifact that occurs when the compression is too high, so using a lower compression (higher quality JPEG setting) might solve this.

 

[BananaRepublic]

I'm having some trouble getting this photo the way I want it. I'm getting this really bad banding in the sky and I can't figure out how to fix this. Any suggestions? Or reasons why this is happening?

Is it visible straight out of the camera or do you do some processing and then it happens.

 

[jeffW]

shoot in raw, when you convert the file in your raw processor make sure you are creating a 16bit file (not an 8bit) and have the colorspace set to ProPhoto RGB or at least Adobe RGB not sRGB

If you are photographing static industrial style images and don't need the camera to process quickly (no action) you can try having the camera reduce noise on longer exposures (or some menu item with text to that extent) I would try it both on and off

 

[Pedro Jimenez]

Are you shooting raw and JPEG?
If raw, how do you convert to JPEG? (What are your "export" settings in the raw converter?)
If JPEG, what quality settings did you choose in the camera?
Did the banding show up after you brightened the image a bit, or is it straight-out-of-camera?

Banding is often an artifact that occurs when the compression is too high, so using a lower compression (higher quality JPEG setting) might solve this.

Yes I am shooting raw, I covert to jpeg with Lightroom I think my setting is set to NEF large. The banding wasn't there before I started to edit, so images right out of the camera didn't have it, it showed up after I finished my edits. My computer monitor is kind of old so I thought maybe the banding was showing because of that but then when I exported the images and viewed them on my phone it was very noticeable. Here's what my export setting look like.

 

[jeffW]

are you only editing the nef file in Lightroom and then converting or are you converting the raw file and then editing some more on the jpeg? I would look at your levels histogram and see if it has gaps. Not sure what to make of your pic as it is of your software window not your image file?? It is true you will see banding on a monitor that very well might not be there for printing.

Have you tried having the Jpeg settings at 100%, a lower output sharpening, and making sure that limit file size is unchecked with no numbers in the box?

I'm also curious what your preferences are for the NEF file's colorspace? And how you have it set up to convert down to the sRGB

 

[table1349]

Post-processing workflow: How to deal with color banding

 

[Ido]

Are you shooting raw and JPEG?
If raw, how do you convert to JPEG? (What are your "export" settings in the raw converter?)
If JPEG, what quality settings did you choose in the camera?
Did the banding show up after you brightened the image a bit, or is it straight-out-of-camera?

Banding is often an artifact that occurs when the compression is too high, so using a lower compression (higher quality JPEG setting) might solve this.

Yes I am shooting raw, I covert to jpeg with Lightroom I think my setting is set to NEF large. The banding wasn't there before I started to edit, so images right out of the camera didn't have it, it showed up after I finished my edits. My computer monitor is kind of old so I thought maybe the banding was showing because of that but then when I exported the images and viewed them on my phone it was very noticeable. Here's what my export setting look like.

Try to uncheck the output sharpening option. I don't think that's the culprit, but it's the best I can think of at this point.

If you don't mind, you could upload the original raw (NEF) file, or do an export to DNG for us to take a look. I don't think you can upload these files directly here, so use something like Dropbox or any generic file-sharing service. Only if you're comfortable with sharing a raw file, of course; you certainly don't have to.