Radial Gradient Banding

Hi, I had a white photo I shot in raw. I edited in PSE7 to turn the entire background white then added radial gradient. It was shifted the colors around a bit to turn the gradient from tan to blue. I noticed a little banding on the psd, but it really showed up when I printed it. When I decreased the exposure, it was really obvious. What caused that? Can I do something differently to prevent it?

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Usually adding a small amount of noise will fix it. Try 2%.

Damien, how do I add noise?

1) process in 16 bit only
2) you can add noise by looking though "filter", though i don't know where exactly it'll be for your specific version of photoshop

Filter > Noise > Add noise

Thanks all. Got it.

This is one of the few cases where 16 bit processing will shine

Can someone show an example with the OP s image?

The 16 bit mode does not act any different than 8 bit mode when adding 2% noise on my computer ( 2% does not get rid of banding, about 7% gets rid of the banding but then you are stuck with a lot of noise ).

I see this all the time on forums, that you should put noise in the image, but how do you get rid of the noise =) ?

pellepiano wrote in post #9062984
Can someone show an example with the OP s image?

The 16 bit mode does not act any different than 8 bit mode when adding 2% noise on my computer ( 2% does not get rid of banding, about 7% gets rid of the banding but then you are stuck with a lot of noise ).

I see this all the time on forums, that you should put noise in the image, but how do you get rid of the noise =) ?

Point is that you shoot RAW, open as a 16bit image, then add the gradient WHILE it is 16bit. making it 8 bit then changing it to 16bit won't do anything. The other thing is that it will be impossible to check to see if 16bit works on a monitor, the only way to check is to print it to a high bit-depth printer and see. All (normal) monitors are limited to 8bit display, so you will see banding in some things.

Ok, so the 16 bit advice is not to save the OPs image , only for printing reasons.

But is there any way to save the OP's image, to get rid of the present banding?

Sadly Elements 16bit editing ability is distinctly limited.

You might try adding the gradient as a separate layer then applying a healthy dose of blur to try and reduce the stepping.

So no one thinks that the banding may be due to a bad profile? You can download and view this Linearization test chart in Photoshop.

Or maybe your video card needs an upgrade?

Electric Shepherd wrote in post #9065990
Sadly Elements 16bit editing ability is distinctly limited.

You might try adding the gradient as a separate layer then applying a healthy dose of blur to try and reduce the stepping.

limited in what ways? should be able to apply the standard image correction, blur and sharpening filters regardless of bitdepth.

This is how I added the gradient. I had a new blank layer and created the gradient. I went back to the photo layer and selected multiply to blend the layers. Is this the best way to add a gradient?

Before reading all the new posts about 16bit. I tried something different which may have fixed the problem. Originally, I started with a tan gradient and shifted the hue to blue. This time, I started out with a blue gradient, and shift only slightly to get the blue tone I wanted. It looks good on the monitor, I'll have to test print to know for sure.

Based on the comments here it and for work flow reasons, I think I should upgrade out of Elements (and CS3 is cheap now). Can you post your opinions on upgrading in a new thread I posted?

https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=785656

any chance you can upload the PSD?

oh and it will get worse as you decrease the 'exposure' because your compressing the dynamic range of the 8bit file..