Strange lines

topgazza

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Took loads of pictures on a short break in South Devon...but ones that had large areas of sky looked fine in camera, fine in CS5 but when saved without doing anything to them have strange curved lines across the images where the sky is. Any ideas ? :(

T37.jpg



T17.jpg
 
This is banding which happens when there aren't enough colours in an image to provide a smooth gradient. The lines form where the colour switches from one shade of blue/grey etc to the next lightest or darkest shade. I'm not sure if there's something you can do with the image colour depth to fix it but I know a common solution is to add light noise to the problem areas so that the noise breaks up the gradient a bit so the patterns don't form.
 
I shall give that a go..many thanks for the quick reply. Its weird because I can't remember having this problem before. Using my Sony 16-105 lens for these shots

Not sure for all of them but I may have been using a polariser on some if that would make it worse ?

Had no problems with my Panasonic TZ10 pictures mind. Maybe that smaller sensor is less sensitive.
 
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I shall give that a go..many thanks for the quick reply

Not sure for all of them but I may have been using a polariser on some if that would make it worse ?
I don't think so, it's just a problem when there are flat areas with a very gradual change in brightness; a cloudless sky being a perfect example in your case.

Make sure the noise is monochromatic and a low percentage (1-5% normally).

Edit: I think the banding wasn't there in camera/photoshop because the image naturally had some noise in it but if you did any noise reduction as part of your editing that could have caused it to appear.
 
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I was avoiding processing with RAW as I had so many shots but with some slight adjustment to Tint and saturation I can remove the lines/banding...almost completely. Not had the problem before and I'm sure I have taken similar shots...but maybe not at such extreme blue featureless skies. Perhaps all DSLRS suffer to some degree. Its not vertical banding as in Nikon but a similar effect ?

Not even heard about it before which surprises me ... is it common ?

Also puzzling that its fine in camera and in CS5 using jpeg until I save it...... :confused:
 
Also puzzling that its fine in camera and in CS5 using jpeg until I save it...... :confused:

Try saving is with a range of JPeg quality settings - you may find there is a point at which the banding 'appears' due to the limitations of JPeg compression (EG It may not appear at 75%, but does at 70%)
 
Good thinking........I'll give that a go... :thumbsup:

Side issue but I took some B&W photos but forgot to switch back to colour for a while. Thankfully with RAW it retains all that info. I don't think I could ever consider another camera other than a very basic P&S only type that doesn't have RAW
 
And that man wins a prize and a big wet kiss from me....or someone who looks like me anyway. I had been saving the pictures at a lower setting than usual because of the volume of pics. Tried one at 575K and got banding...same pic at 1.1meg , my usual rate, no banding. Thankfully most of the pictures don't really need any work on them as the light was so good and I delete the "bad" pictures to save space anyway.

So all is good.... thank you all :smashin:
 
And that man wins a prize and a big wet kiss from me....or someone who looks like me anyway.

Yay! I've won a prize...

...

Ahhrrrgghhh, help.....

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:
 
Await the knock at the door...... :devil:
 

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