Image sent to Nik Silver Efex Pro 2 shows unacceptable banding

[lapzan]

I've been using C1 for almost  year and have been extremely pleased with the results. I've also used it with Silver Efex Pro2 and have been pleased. I finally have an exception to this. I have an image, shot with shallow DOF, on my D810. I brought it into C1, made no adjustments and sent it to SFX and the image looks blotchy. I've not had this problem with other images.

When I look at the image in C1, the transition between tones looks smooth. In SFX, each tonal range looks distinct from the other, there is no smooth blending between ranges. In SFX I used the zone tool to see if I have a situation where a lower zone abuts a zone more than a couple of steps away, but that is not the case. An area that shows as zone 2, next to zone 3, shows a distinct demarcation, that is not appealing.

I've probably sent over 30 images to SFX from C1 with no issues. This is the first time I'm having this problem. I tried a BW conversion using Dx0 and it seemed to work better.

Any thought as to why an image (that to me) does not seem much different than others I've processed would show such a distinct transition from one tone to the other?

[David Grover / Capture One]

I've been using C1 for almost  year and have been extremely pleased with the results. I've also used it with Silver Efex Pro2 and have been pleased. I finally have an exception to this. I have an image, shot with shallow DOF, on my D810. I brought it into C1, made no adjustments and sent it to SFX and the image looks blotchy. I've not had this problem with other images.

When I look at the image in C1, the transition between tones looks smooth. In SFX, each tonal range looks distinct from the other, there is no smooth blending between ranges. In SFX I used the zone tool to see if I have a situation where a lower zone abuts a zone more than a couple of steps away, but that is not the case. An area that shows as zone 2, next to zone 3, shows a distinct demarcation, that is not appealing.

I've probably sent over 30 images to SFX from C1 with no issues. This is the first time I'm having this problem. I tried a BW conversion using Dx0 and it seemed to work better.

Any thought as to why an image (that to me) does not seem much different than others I've processed would show such a distinct transition from one tone to the other?

1.  Perhaps an issue with SFX?
2.  Have you tried converting to BW in Capture One? 

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

I've been using C1 for almost  year and have been extremely pleased with the results. I've also used it with Silver Efex Pro2 and have been pleased. I finally have an exception to this. I have an image, shot with shallow DOF, on my D810. I brought it into C1, made no adjustments and sent it to SFX and the image looks blotchy. I've not had this problem with other images.

Hi,

What kind of image do you send to SFX? Is it a 16-bit/channel TIFF, and is it full size? If so, have you checked how that output looks in another Photo-editor, e.g. Photoshop? Is it already looking blotchy there? If not, then I'd suspect SFX. I don't use it myself, so I'm not familiar with any issues, so you might want to check their forum (if they have one) for other user reports/fixes.

Cheers,
Bart

[budjames]

Works fine with my Fuji-X RAW files converted with C1P9 sent to Silver Efex Pro 2. Conversions are so much better than with Lightroom.

Cheers.
Bud