AAAHHHHH......why?

[mishele]

Why are there lines going through my bokeh on the left side of this picture? If you look where the gray goes to black it is chopped into lines. The background had nothing like that in it. And I haven't processed the shot alot.

Camera Canon EOS 5D Mark II Exposure 0.001 sec (1/800) Aperture f/2.8 Focal Length 100 mm ISO Speed 200So noise shouldn't be a issue. Any ideas?

 

[clanthar]

Hi,

The lines (banding) follows the gradation. Right away I'd call it JPEG banding -- that's what I'd expect the JPEG algorithm to do with a gradation.

Did you shoot the original RAW and if so does the banding show in the RAW file?

Take Care,
Joe

 

[mishele]

Yes, it does show on the RAW but much less.

 

[clanthar]

Hi,

If it shows in the RAW file then JPEG isn't the original cause. JPEG would still accentuate the banding and that may explain why this screen version is worse.

If it's in the RAW file then you have to look to the camera or the RAW processing software for the culprit. Even though you shot the original RAW, the camera is still involved in processing the signal from the sensor. You could get on Canon's support forum and have one of their techs have a look at the RAW file.

There is the possibility that the RAW processing software is guilty. I'm often surprised at how differently Adobe RAW versus Canon versus other RAW processing software will open the same file quite differently.

Take Care,
Joe

 

[KmH]

Posterization and banding are most likely to appear when the bit-depth is reduced to 8-bits. JPEG has an 8-bit depth which is why posterization and banding are often associatesd with it.

RAW files once converted usually have a 16-bit depth unless the application used to do the conversion is set to an 8-bit depth. ACR can be set to 8-bits but I don't think many people do that.

You are actually referring to depth-of-field (DOF). Bokeh and DOF are not synonymous.

 

[Derrel]

Still a very lovely flower though....perhaps you could do some kind of gradient fill on the backdrop....with such a good outline, it ought to be relatively easy to select the flower and stem and then knock out the backdrop and slap in another background. The way the orange flower blossom is rendered is just totally beautiful--I absolutely love that part of the shot. Love it,love it,love it. The deeply saturated blue on the right hand side looks a bit over the top and manipulated, as if you "pushed" a JPEG capture too far in processing, and got the posterization of tones, which happens when there is not sufficient color bit-depth.

An alternate approach might be to re-process from scratch,and back off on the over-saturated blue on the right hand side of the frame, and then go to selective color and the blues, and see if maybe you could jazz that up there, without making a global color shift that is causing the posterization (the banding you see is called posterization). The orange flower itself is so beautiful, it deserves to be worked into a "keeper" quality image, it really does!

As always, there are many,many approaches to post work. Just my 2 cents.