▶ Sugestions for tidying up this weird wavy line sky ? ◀

[Arrrgh]

Hey guys I have a wavy line sky which I'm struggling to tidy up.

I've tried various blur techniques but nothing seems to work.

I no longer have the raw file (so I can't reprocess).

Any advice, tutorial links, additional software suggestions would be great...

Thanks
Paul

 

[Arrrgh]

Where are all the gurus at??!

 

[Eggy]

Its called 'banding' and occurs with 8 bit RGB on gradients.
Here are some techniques to reduce that effect

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=photoshop+remove+banding

 

[gedstar]

I was able to reduce it using Topaz DeNoise Filter, still not great but it's a bit of an improvement

 

[Tom Mann]

Of the videos in Eggy's search, IMHO, one of the best is Lee Varis':
https://youtu.be/HLWh68q_yUI

Varis gives a very good, easy-to-understand introduction to banding problems, and then suggests the use of PS's splatter filter to break up the banding.

The spatter filter is a more effective version of the standard advice to add a slight bit of digital noise to the sky to break up banding. If you happen to have a good film grain simulator, ie, one that allows you to change the size of the grain, that's even better than the splatter filter, but the best film grain simulators (eg, Imagenomics' "Real Grain") are commercial plugins and are not free.

One of the other important take-home messages in his video is his discussion (towards the end of the video) of how smoothing filters, instead of helping with banding problems, often can actually make banding worse.

HTH,

Tom M

It's well worth watching the entire 20 minute video.

 

[Arrrgh]

Awesome thanks guys that is most appreciated!

I think the fact the image is an 8bit jpeg isnt helping with this 'banding' either.



Think I need to change my workflow to 16bit.



Can I ask what your workflows are like? or anyone else like to mention theirs?



I process in capture one pro currently. Thinking I will start to process to 16bit tiffs and avoid jpegs as much as possible.



Colour and detail are important as I make huge prints...

 

[Tom Mann]

Yes, yes, and yes!!! LOL.

16 bpc should be your SOP whether you anticipate banding or not. It's also incredibly useful if you have to lift dark shadows.

The other thing you have to worry about is the bit depth of your video card and monitor. Often (especially in the past), you may be dealing with high bit depth images, but they show banding because your video system doesn't even really use 8 bpc. Some dither the last bit or two for cost or refresh rate reasons, so you might see banding when it really doesn't exist.

Got to run.

Tom M

 

[Arrrgh]

Great point thanks Tom. Just watching that video too!

p.s your profile photo is making me ecliptic! can't ya put an ND filter on that thing!

 

[Tom Mann]

You're quite welcome, Arrrgh!

Re my profile photo, I'm sorry, but I can't remove it because our Federal Aviation Administration has officially listed it as a navigational aid for this area.

Do stop by again. We love interesting questions like yours.

All the best,

Tom M

 

[Arrrgh]

That video on splatter technique for banding did the trick! Thanks Tom!

Lee Varis' video really explains it best and as Tom said the 20 mins is worth it if you have this issue!

Before:

After:


Add the splatter filter to a duplicate of the main image then with a layer mask brushed back the areas which didn't have banding like the shore line etc. See how much it cleaned up the top of the picture.



Hope this helps someone searching...

 

[Tom Mann]

One of our members pointed out to me that you posted the same question over on the Adobe help forum:
https://forums.adobe.com/thread/2272563

... and then described the techniques we have been discussing in this thread and this forum.

I realize it was probably just an oversight, but in technical literature like this, instead of referring to the "research you have done", a citation or even just an informal mention of the forum that first pointed you to this solution is considered standard professional / collegial courtesy and certainly is *always* appreciated. ;-)

Cheers,

Tom M

 

[Arrrgh]

No offense intended Tom, your help was very much appreciated.

As you'll see on that other forum it was my first EVER post there too.

I don't usually use these places and I hope the fact I came back to both sites to follow up my findings illustrates my intentions were to help the community.

Unlike a lot first time users I have seen in my short time here who get an answer and are never to be seen again...