Image banding in Photoshop

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Permalink Reply by Deneb Catalan on September 5, 2009 at 10:47pm

Usually adding some Monochromatic noise to a duplicate layer and giving it a slight Gaussian blur would fix it slightly. I would normally not burn the actual image, but another method is to create a fill layer with a gradient mask, and with a large soft brush set to a low percentage to brush out the excess to achieve a smooth effect with little to no banding at all. Vignettes can be tricky. I would make sure that the resolution is kept high while adding the vignette. By keeping it on a separate layer, you have full control over the adjustments. I hope this helps. Beautiful shot by the way.

Deneb

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Permalink Reply by Barbara Ann Heintzman on September 5, 2009 at 11:17pm

Thanks for this! I like the idea of the noise, I'll see how far I can take it. I keep everything on separate layers as I like going back if things/ideas just arn't working out. I usually do vignette's two different ways - a separate layer set to "overlay" and use the brush (black) at 25% . Or a curves layer, darken the image up, mask it and use the brush again. I guess this is what you mean with the fill layer and gradient mask. I'll try what Sean is saying too by working in a higher bit. I don't usually work in a higher as I think it is a larger file size. One thing I have been trying and this is why I like the noise idea, is to add texture to the plain paper with a scrapbooking type paper. I took pictures of various scrapbooking paper so I can add the textures to images. I've attached some images. The one is from the same shoot with the grey paper background but the other is from a session I did awhile ago using a textured wall I have in the studio. Thanks for the info!

Attachments:

• 47_faux_bg_webprf.jpg, 129 KB
• _D303272webprf.jpg, 242 KB
• _D303272webproof.jpg, 287 KB

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Permalink Reply by Sean on September 5, 2009 at 10:57pm

If you work in a higher bit 16 or 32 it will reduce that. But any time you are in one solid color in 8 bits you will get that sort of banding. It will come back when you have to switch back into 8 bit to turn it into a jpeg, but for prints use the tif file type.

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