Noise Banding or Posterization in Lighroom

[duxup]

Hello Luminous Landscape forum folk,

I have encountered an issue in Lightroom that I can not see to explain or resolve.  I was hoping the

First some background, I'm just an enthusiast when it comes to photography.  I mostly just use Lighroom for my photo processing and with the arrival of my son a couple months ago he is pretty much now my primary subject  

The short description of the issue is that I am seeing what I would describe as noise banding or posterization in Lighroom on some images, mostly images that are high ISO and thus prone to be noisy.  The baffling part is that if I export the image at 100% quality and open the image in something like Picasa image viewer I do not see nearly the same amount of posterization or noise banding (whatever the propper term is sorry about that).

It gets even more confusing as when viewing on my wife's computer in adobe lightroom (I'm copying the DB and all the photos to a USB drive and opening them in Lighroom on her computer).  I do not see the posterization or noise banding.  I found she was running Lightroom 2.4 and I am running 2.6.  I loaded 2.4 up on my computer and I still see the problem on my computer.

My wife and I are using different computers with different monitors.  I thought perhaps a difference in monitors could be it, but oddly enough when I take screen shot of both adobe Lighroom and Picasa side by side and open it on my wife's computer the noise and banding issue is apparent.   I'm not sure if that rules out a monitor difference or not.

I am thinking that my local Lightroom has some automatic setting that I foolishly set and forgot about.  The files I'm viewing in Lighroom are RAW files from my 50D.

I'm not sure how this img will look on other people's monitors but here is a screen shot of what I am seeing.



I'd appreciate any advice anyone has.  If this the incorrect place to post this inquiry my apologies.  I read LL quite frequently but I am not an avid forum reader.

[Schewe]

I'd appreciate any advice anyone has.

Looks like it could be a display profile issue...how is your display calibrate and profiled? Also, for future reference, you should include your relevant computer specs and basics...(the screenshot indicates you are in Windows but no indication of flavor).

If it is a profile issue, try removing the current profile and re-profiling...

[duxup]

Looks like it could be a display profile issue...how is your display calibrate and profiled? Also, for future reference, you should include your relevant computer specs and basics...(the screenshot indicates you are in Windows but no indication of flavor).

If it is a profile issue, try removing the current profile and re-profiling...

Schewe thanks for the advise.   I am running windows 7, my wife's computer is running Vista.  Just being an enthusiastic amateur I haven't done anything in the way of monitor profiling or calibrating although perhaps this is a good time to look into it.

[NikoJorj]

Another little thing : what you see in the library module is just a preview and is not 100% accurate, whereas the develop module is (at least at 1:1 setting).

[duxup]

The previews I have seen for years in LR always look like crap from my Canon and Leaf files. The files look great in PS or anywhere else including prints straight from LR, just poor quality previews seem standard in LR with banding/posterization. Nothing to do with a screen profile.

Ah that was it.  Ages ago when i was on a slower computer and first started this lightroom DB I had the preview quality set to medium.  For some reason this never was an issue (at least I didn't notice it).  I set it to high and there we go things look much better.

Thanks all.