What causes these artifacts in the sky

[mjcmt]

What causes these rings in the sky? I finally got around to doing a b/w where it's most noticeable. Is it the lens?
Shot w/ noise Canon G-10 Powershot compact camera.

Carolina Beach, NC 2009

 

[480sparky]

Banding. Caused by post-processing.

 

[smoke665]

What he said^^^^. Here's a little reference on it Identifying and Repairing Banding - Digital Photo Magazine.

 

[nokk]

as stated above, it's banding. it's likely due to the histogram being stretched too far in editing.

however, one of my computers has an issue where banding shows up on about half of my images. it's not just the monitor, the banding is still on the image when viewed on another computer. the same file, processed the exact same way on a more powerful computer will not have any banding. so if you're not doing much to the file it may be the computer.

 

[mjcmt]

Ok I edited from a tiff 16bit file. I tried another that is slightly different w/ less sky. Still banding in sky. Maybe its the computer like Nokk suggests.

 

[480sparky]

It also might be the quality setting you're saving the file at. 100% is best, and maybe you're saving the file at 80% quality.

 

[smoke665]

Something else you might look at

1. Are you editing in Lr, Ps, or both?
   
2. Metadata shows processing Google Silver Efex Pro. I'm not a big fan of it, is the banding there before you used Efex?
   
3. Metadata shows: WARNING: Color space tagged as sRGB, without an embedded color profile. Windows and Mac browsers and apps treat the colors randomly. which could be a problem.
4. Finally did you use any adjustment brushes or gradient filters on the sky?

 

[greybeard]

I get that kind of banding when I export to jpg in LR and I set the quality slider too low.

 

[Space Face]

As stated most likely PP compression. Over sharpening, excessive NR and file size changes are the most common caused I find. Difficult to get rid of other than starting from scratch.

 

[JBPhotog]

Ok I edited from a tiff 16bit file. I tried another that is slightly different w/ less sky. Still banding in sky. Maybe its the computer like Nokk suggests.

View attachment 204445

Which capture format did you shoot in Raw or JPEG?

Your G10 can shoot in Raw but if it was shot in JPEG the compression in camera could have tossed out usable information. It doesn't matter if you import a JPEG then convert it to 16 bit for additional processing, you don't gain information lost during the in camera post processing.

 

[mjcmt]

Ok I edited from a tiff 16bit file. I tried another that is slightly different w/ less sky. Still banding in sky. Maybe its the computer like Nokk suggests.

View attachment 204445

Which capture format did you shoot in Raw or JPEG?

Your G10 can shoot in Raw but if it was shot in JPEG the compression in camera could have tossed out usable information. It doesn't matter if you import a JPEG then convert it to 16 bit for additional processing, you don't gain information lost during the in camera post processing.

Shot RAW converted to tiff so I could edit in silver efex.

 

[nokk]

Ok I edited from a tiff 16bit file. I tried another that is slightly different w/ less sky. Still banding in sky. Maybe its the computer like Nokk suggests.

View attachment 204445

Which capture format did you shoot in Raw or JPEG?

Your G10 can shoot in Raw but if it was shot in JPEG the compression in camera could have tossed out usable information. It doesn't matter if you import a JPEG then convert it to 16 bit for additional processing, you don't gain information lost during the in camera post processing.

Shot RAW converted to tiff so I could edit in silver efex.

if you have lightroom try using the edit in feature. it'll do the same thing as converting to tiff and opening in silver efex, but presumably with the best export options. do the artifacts appear before or after you edit in silver efex? if i had to take a guess i'd say it's the editing process and not the computer.

 

[mjcmt]

Ok I edited from a tiff 16bit file. I tried another that is slightly different w/ less sky. Still banding in sky. Maybe its the computer like Nokk suggests.

View attachment 204445

Which capture format did you shoot in Raw or JPEG?

Your G10 can shoot in Raw but if it was shot in JPEG the compression in camera could have tossed out usable information. It doesn't matter if you import a JPEG then convert it to 16 bit for additional processing, you don't gain information lost during the in camera post processing.

Shot RAW converted to tiff so I could edit in silver efex.

if you have lightroom try using the edit in feature. it'll do the same thing as converting to tiff and opening in silver efex, but presumably with the best export options. do the artifacts appear before or after you edit in silver efex? if i had to take a guess i'd say it's the editing process and not the computer.

I don't have light room. I use Apple's free Photo editing program on my iMac. It's only an occasional photo. This photo taken at the same time doesn't have banding.

 

[nokk]

Ok I edited from a tiff 16bit file. I tried another that is slightly different w/ less sky. Still banding in sky. Maybe its the computer like Nokk suggests.

View attachment 204445

Which capture format did you shoot in Raw or JPEG?

Your G10 can shoot in Raw but if it was shot in JPEG the compression in camera could have tossed out usable information. It doesn't matter if you import a JPEG then convert it to 16 bit for additional processing, you don't gain information lost during the in camera post processing.

Shot RAW converted to tiff so I could edit in silver efex.

if you have lightroom try using the edit in feature. it'll do the same thing as converting to tiff and opening in silver efex, but presumably with the best export options. do the artifacts appear before or after you edit in silver efex? if i had to take a guess i'd say it's the editing process and not the computer.

I don't have light room. I use Apple's free Photo editing program on my iMac. It's only an occasional photo. This photo taken at the same time doesn't have banding.
View attachment 204491

it's pointed in a different direction which means you'll have different tones in the sky. this image is shooting with the sun at your back so the tones in the sky have less variation. the other shot is almost into the sun, so there's a lot of tonal variation in the sky (brighter towards the sun, darker further away). if the histogram compressed and stretched while editing the image then you're going to have banding where the different tones break apart.

when in the editing process does the banding appear? is it when you first open the raw file? after the tiff conversion? after silver efex?

 

[JBPhotog]

Ok I edited from a tiff 16bit file. I tried another that is slightly different w/ less sky. Still banding in sky. Maybe its the computer like Nokk suggests.

View attachment 204445

Which capture format did you shoot in Raw or JPEG?

Your G10 can shoot in Raw but if it was shot in JPEG the compression in camera could have tossed out usable information. It doesn't matter if you import a JPEG then convert it to 16 bit for additional processing, you don't gain information lost during the in camera post processing.

Shot RAW converted to tiff so I could edit in silver efex.

if you have lightroom try using the edit in feature. it'll do the same thing as converting to tiff and opening in silver efex, but presumably with the best export options. do the artifacts appear before or after you edit in silver efex? if i had to take a guess i'd say it's the editing process and not the computer.

I don't have light room. I use Apple's free Photo editing program on my iMac. It's only an occasional photo. This photo taken at the same time doesn't have banding.
View attachment 204491

Which "free" editing program are you talking about?
If it is the Photos App make sure you are selecting the "Export" and select the dropdown next to Tiff and check the box next to "16 Bit" otherwise it will export an 8 bit Tiff. Then choose "AdobeRGB" for the colour profile.

Is there a reason you aren't using Canon's DPP software to convert your Raw files?