Need Help in PP...Strange Striations? C&C welcome.

[GreggS]

thanks a lot for the advice. I went back, started from scratch, and ended up with the result below. It's a bit more vibrant than the others, but I think it may fit in this scenario. After trying a number of things, including masking, burning, dodging, curve adjustment, smudging, etc. I think I got to a decent result--better than my OP anyway. Thanks for all the suggestions!

 

[KmH]

JPEG discards most of the color data developed (about 80% of it as JPEG fine) and is limited to an 8-bit color depth per color channel, which limits the gradations of tone in a gradient, like a blue sky, it can render. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JPEG

8-bits, 11111111, only allows for 256 gradation is tone. A DSLR raw file is 12-bits (4096 tones) or 14-bit (16,384 tones), or the bit depth can be selected as 12 or 14 bits, compressed or not compressed.

Each binary digit can be a 1 or a 0. When the ones place is a one, it is full and a carry to the next place is done so the binary number 10 = 2, zero in the ones place and 1 in the 2's place. 111 = 7. 1 in the ones place, 1 in the 2's place, and 1 in the 4's place, so 4+2+1 = 7.

So for 8-bits the places have max values of 128, 64, 32, 16, 8, 4, 2, 1 so 11111111 = 128+64+32+16+8+4+2+1 = 255 plus 00000000 = 0 for 256 gradations of tone per color channel.