8bit vs 6bit monitors

[davidfig]

I'm trying to see if I can see the difference from a 6bit to a 8bit LCD. I made a gradient picture with PSCS2. If you have an 8bit display, can you see banding like I see in this picture??

Your help is appreciated. I'm trying to decide it 8bit is worth it. :rolleyes: The picture is a png file off my website.


http://liphotog.com/graident.png

[davidfig]

I also looked at this on my toshiba laptop. No banding.:mad:

Assuming the laptop is 8bit. There is a big difference. What do you see? anyone out there?

[kevie]

I see the banding

[In2Photos]

I see banding as well but not sure what my current monitor is.:confused:

[tim]

I see a little bit of banding. Samsung SyncMaster 910T, great monitor.

[cdifoto]

I see minor banding but not like a severe gif type (probably not even remotely accurate terminology) of banding, if that even makes sense. No idea if I'm 8 or 6 though.

[cdifoto]

On my laptop (Dell Latitude D820) this time and I see virtually no banding. Some there but not as bad as my desktop LCD (Viewsonic VA902b) and my desktop isn't bad.

[René Damkot]

I don't think I see banding on my CRT.

[EOS MAN1]

I don't see any on a CRT.

[gcogger]

It's completely smooth (no banding at all) on my Eizo LCD.

[CyberDyneSystems]

No Banding on my CRT.

.. Ahh Eizo, there's an LCD I would suffer with! :lol:

[Tsmith]

David on my Apple 20" Cinema I can see very (and I mean very) minor banding. With my 3.5 year old ViewSonic Pro Series its more noticeable. I'd say on a scale of 1-10 with the Apple it'd be like 0.25 that the banding is visible.

Some the Eizo's are 12 bit, very nice indeed.

[pxl8]

The eye can easily see the banding in an 8bit image, the images below show a more obvious example. The smooth version has been created in 192bit (64bits per channel) and reduced down to 8bit with dithering. It was created in a 3D rendering app and it's a trick I've used in the past to remove banding from subtle sky gradients, etc. Even on a 6bit display the dithered version will look smooth.

[davidfig]

If you see any banding whatsoever it might be that you have a 6bit display. The reason I noticed it was that I was reviewing some wedding shots I took and I could see it in the wedding dress (I didn't on my old monitor) and especially in darker gradient areas. I guess I'm being an arse, but when I am preparing a photo for a bride that is going to be 20x30, it had better be perfect.

pxl8's pictures are a good example. In the first one its banded, that's how I see it on my 6bit LCD, the second picture is more what I see on my laptop. But if I take a really close look I can see just a slight dithering in the second picture. This is because a 6bit display will dither. It used to be that they would rate a 6bit display as 16.2 million colors (even though it only has 256K colors) and that was the key. But now they all seem to leave this out. 16.7 or nothing.

So I just have to decide how important this is to me.

[davidfig]

I see a little bit of banding. Samsung SyncMaster 910T, great monitor.

Samsung SyncMaster 910T LCD is a true 8bit. It should have only slight banding as if you see three faded bands. But I see about 40 bands.

[gcogger]

No Banding on my CRT.

.. Ahh Eizo, there's an LCD I would suffer with! :lol:

It's a Coloredge one, too :)

I got it when they were replacing the CG18 with the CG19. I phoned Eizo to ask which of their cheaper 19" monitors would be best for photo editing, and the lady I spoke to offered me a CG18 at the same price. I must have thought about it for all of a millisecond :)

[davidfig]

Well I returned my original monitor. All the pictures in this thread are much better. This means of course that I will have to have a 8bit LCD monitor.

Now the problem is ensuring that I get it. argh!!