Help! why does this happen

[alarionov]

see the weird lines in the sky area? Why does this happen. I am using photoshop elements, desat, some blur, and some brown.

 

[alarionov]

I believe that I read that is called posterization??? And it happens when you over-process an image???

thanks just googled it, looks like its might be the curves. Dont suppose you know of a way to fix without going back to scratch?

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

I selected the sky and blurred it away.
It's totally salvagable.

Odd that it did it only in the sky, and looking through your stream, it doesn't appear in any other photos.

 

[KmH]

It's called "banding" too.

A JPEG image has an 8-bit color depth. Only 256 colors can be represented by 8-bits.

There are not enough colors to faithfully render the gradual tonal transitions in the sky and you see a line where each transition to the next of 256 colors is.

RAW captures have a 12-bit (4,096 colors) or 14-bit (16,384 colors) color depth which is why so many shoot RAW mode.

Color depth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[reznap]

Jpeg compression..

Make sure you shoot on high quality jpeg and when you save your photo in Photoshop make sure the quality is at least a 9... 12 is max, I save my jpg's at 11.

EDIT: ^ Also what KMH said - but if you save a nicely edited RAW image as a low quality jpg you'll get this end result too.

Odd that it did it only in the sky

It's in the hillside too on #1... These are pretty severely damaged

 

[AnaBo]

FYI when you print, the banding is less noticeable in glossy, satin or luster paper. matte will show every single line. but I mean actual matte not the luster you get at a one hour place.

Just something to keep in mind if you are printing, sometimes you don't notice the banding till you print.

 

[vtf]

Interesting... *I* definitely learned something new!

me too:thumbup:

 

[Derrel]

It's posterization caused by excessively adjusting the images in post processing. There's an acceptable degree of adjustment where tones and colors and values are not stretched too far--and if you go beyond that degree of manipulation, you'll get posterization. Shooting in-camera JPEG is the worst, since the files out of the camera can not stand up to a high degree of adjustment; RAW captures, done in either 12-bit or 14-bit RAW have a significantly greater amount of post-processing adjustment that can be applied before posterization begins.

 

[Big]

Well, since they've answered your question, nice shots! haha. I like the contrast

 

[EmmaIam]

Go back to scratch, processing an over processed image leaves you with the ability to show a 'small' image, and yield a low grade print.

Em

 

[creisinger]

KmH and Derrel are right.

Especially skies show this phenomenon quite often. If you've seen it before you can notice it in many pictures once you know what you are looking for. It may not be that apparent but it's something digital cameras fight with due to the bit-depth they are restricted to.

It happens to me sometimes that I can see banding in 16/12 bit images but once I convert them to 8-bit, the banding is gone.

In any case, try to start editing your images in 12/16 bit, it will give you more leeway when editing.

 

[alarionov]

Wow! awsome information guys, thanks. I think I might go back to the RAW file and start again.

Well, since they've answered your question, nice shots! haha. I like the contrast

thanks