[chmance]

The vision I wanted to portray: the SkyTrain streaking across the SkyBridge. I thought that was best portrayed at dusk so the train is rendered as a streak of light on the deck of the bridge heading to the other side of the river.

The vision spoiler: The banding is not seen in the either the RAW or JPEG files. However, I notice that every time I touch the highlights to correct the exposure, banding in the blue sky develops .

Am doing a bit of research trying to isolate the cause. Please help. (1) Could it be my use of Elements 8, which was released when dinosaurs roamed the face of the earth? (2) Could it be my monitor and perhaps you are not seeing it in yours? Am using Dell UltraSharp U2410. (3) Could it be the camera I used (K20D)? I think I have not seen this problem with my K5 when used under low light condition and long exposures.

I would love to hear from you as I want to save this series of pictures.

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Last edited by chmance; 08-22-2015 at 05:45 PM. Reason: typo

[jbondo]

Possible cause:
I looks like the adjustments are introducing Mach Bands: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mach_bands
Looks like the adjustments are causing groups of pixels to have similar values and then you see the undesired effect.

Possible solution:
Create a layer with the unadjusted image and another layer on top with the adjusted image at partial opacity. It might partially fix it.
Also, can you convert it to the deeper bit depth before doing the adjustment?
Can you do this adjustment in raw before it gets converted?
Others may know a better technique to deal with this, but maybe this will get you started in the right direction.

[chmance]

Possible cause:
I looks like the adjustments are introducing Mach Bands: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mach_bands
Looks like the adjustments are causing groups of pixels to have similar values and then you see the undesired effect.

Possible solution:
Create a layer with the unadjusted image and another layer on top with the adjusted image at partial opacity. It might partially fix it.
Also, can you convert it to the deeper bit depth before doing the adjustment?
Can you do this adjustment in raw before it gets converted?
Others may know a better technique to deal with this, but maybe this will get you started in the right direction.

Thanks jbondo for the helpful tips.

I did a few thing including your suggestion but I can't seem to solve the problem. However, I followed your suggestion of doing almost all the exposure adjustment in RAW before saving in JPEG. That seems to help. Below is my second attempt albeit with a slight difference in cropping. The banding is not as prominent in colour as it was before but it definitely shows in the monochrome. There is more work necessary to solve this problem.

[Bruce Clark]

It might be that Elements has a reduced bit depth as compared to the full Photoshop or Lightroom. I am not 100% certain of the technicalities but I have read that this can lead to banding in skies where the tonal graduations are very subtle.

[chmance]

It might be that Elements has a reduced bit depth as compared to the full Photoshop or Lightroom. I am not 100% certain of the technicalities but I have read that this can lead to banding in skies where the tonal graduations are very subtle.

Thanks Bruce for the comment. I guess it's time to really think of investing in a good pp software.

Cheers!

Charlie

[jbondo]

It might be that Elements has a reduced bit depth

PS Elements can do a limited number of adjustments and functions in 16 bit space, but most adjustments are not available until switched to 8bit per channel.

I've had an excellent experience with DXO Optics pro for raw processing. I recommend wholeheartedly.

[chmance]

PS Elements can do a limited number of adjustments and functions in 16 bit space, but most adjustments are not available until switched to 8bit per channel.

I've had an excellent experience with DXO Optics pro for raw processing. I recommend wholeheartedly.

Thanks for the recommendation. I think am starting to outgrow Elements 8. And I like that before investing in another software. I remember outgrowing my K10D and then getting the K5. (But I missed the K10D so much that I decided to get a used K20D (with just 6K+ clicks) that feels like the K10D albeit with a better sensor.)