Quantock Pines

[Chairman Bill]

A stand of old pine trees on the Quantock Hills, Somerset, UK. There's some banding effect (no idea of the technical term) noticeable in the sky to the right of the far left tree. Any simple means of dealing with this sort of thing? (I'm using Aperture, don't have Photoshop)

[dalethorn]

Very nice photo - I enlarged it but don't see any banding. I see hills or something near the bottom, a cloud layer above that, and a thin cloud layer or jet trail above that. Everything else looks clean.

[Chairman Bill]

I wonder then whether it's my monitor. Towards the top of the photo, the sky shows up as distinct patchy bands of darkness rather than a smooth gradation.

[John R]

I wonder then whether it's my monitor. Towards the top of the photo, the sky shows up as distinct patchy bands of darkness rather than a smooth gradation.

I have 22 inch monitor and what I see is banding or clustering, barely perceptible, where the sky turns from dark to light rapidly at the top left just to the right of the most left tree. IMO this comes from altering the contrast-brightness controls too much. I have done this myself and your image has an infrared look which often produces this kind of banding or clustering and makes part of the image unrealistic looking. Try a one time BW conversion paying close attention to the contrast alterations. The more you alter your image at the extreme ends of the contrast-brightness controls, the more this kind of look will appear.

As much as I like the composition, the lighting looks unrealistic. But perhaps that is the look you are going for.

JMR

[jasonrandolph]

I did see some banding, although I had to look closely to see it.  The real proof would be to make a print and see if it shows up.  As for the image itself, the contrast is quite strong, maybe just a bit too strong.  Otherwise, there's nice detail in the light side of the trees.  The composition is nice, with eyes drawn to the dominant tree one-third og the way to the right.  Nice photo.

[Chairman Bill]

Thanks for the feedback. I've reduced the contrast a bit, which certainly cleans things up a bit

[ProPhotoInsights]

Are you retouching in 16 bit?
Making large movements in PS etc in 8bit will produce posterisation and normally can show up in the historgram as large gaps.
Cheers,
Simon (also somerset)

[John R]

Thanks for the feedback. I've reduced the contrast a bit, which certainly cleans things up a bit

Certainly this second version looks more realistic and I like it better. Not sure I understand the problem, is this image full of backlight and that is why it appears so contrasty?

JMR

[Chairman Bill]

The trees have a heavy hoar frost covering much of them, so the contrast looks rather more pronounced as a result