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Author Topic: Gradient Banding Issue  (Read 1401 times)

JimT1

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Gradient Banding Issue
« on: February 03, 2018, 01:12:55 pm »

I've created a photo file within Photoshop that has a gradient that looked great.  I saved the file into Lightroom and it still looks great every time I view it without any banding no matter the zoom setting.  The problem I am having arises when I open this same file into Photoshop now.  The banding on the gradient looks awful.  It seems I cant make any good gradients now.  They all have a hard edge with lots of banding.  Though the photo still looks great in Lightroom, but not in Photoshop?  I even open the same file into Topaz Studio and the gradient looks great. 

Another weird aspect:  From within Photoshop, if I open the camera raw filter the gradient looks great again, but when I press done it goes back to looking bad.  Also, making a gradient from inside the layers Fx blending the gradient looks good, but if I stamp all my layers down the gradient goes back to looking bad banding again! 
 
My settings: Prophoto RGB, 16bit/channel, 300px/inch 4k monitor.  I work with Tiff and Raw files around 5,000x4000px in size.
 
I've even tried recalibrating my monitor and trying different profiles.  I don't get it.  One day its fine the next its not.
 
Any ideas?
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Garnick

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Re: Gradient Banding Issue
« Reply #1 on: February 03, 2018, 04:12:25 pm »

I've created a photo file within Photoshop that has a gradient that looked great.  I saved the file into Lightroom and it still looks great every time I view it without any banding no matter the zoom setting.  The problem I am having arises when I open this same file into Photoshop now.  The banding on the gradient looks awful.  It seems I cant make any good gradients now.  They all have a hard edge with lots of banding.  Though the photo still looks great in Lightroom, but not in Photoshop?  I even open the same file into Topaz Studio and the gradient looks great. 

Another weird aspect:  From within Photoshop, if I open the camera raw filter the gradient looks great again, but when I press done it goes back to looking bad.  Also, making a gradient from inside the layers Fx blending the gradient looks good, but if I stamp all my layers down the gradient goes back to looking bad banding again! 
 
My settings: Prophoto RGB, 16bit/channel, 300px/inch 4k monitor.  I work with Tiff and Raw files around 5,000x4000px in size.


 
I've even tried recalibrating my monitor and trying different profiles.  I don't get it.  One day its fine the next its not.
 
Any ideas?

Hi Jim,

Occasionally the Photoshop Pref file can become corrupted for various reasons.  Try opening PS with no Prefs.  First, save your Workspace in PS and perhaps take screenshots of all of the PS Prefs that you have set, just as a reminder later.  Start up PS and immediately hold down the CTRL, ALT and SHIFT keys.  You will be asked if you want to start PS while ignoring the prefs.  Click "YES" and let the app start up.  That will launch PS while also creating a new/fresh Pref file.  Reload your workspace and reset your prefs as they were previously.  This may or may not solve the problem, but it's easy and worth the time.

Gary 
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Gary N.
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kers

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Re: Gradient Banding Issue
« Reply #2 on: February 03, 2018, 05:36:06 pm »

you can measure the values in pghotoshop to see if the values jump...
I think it not a real problem, but just a bad presentation of the reality.
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David Sutton

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Re: Gradient Banding Issue
« Reply #3 on: February 03, 2018, 09:24:59 pm »

The hard edge doesn't sound good, and may be a problem with the settings.
Otherwise, you may find my post useful here:
http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=122739.0
David
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Doug Gray

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Re: Gradient Banding Issue
« Reply #4 on: February 03, 2018, 11:29:06 pm »

I've created a photo file within Photoshop that has a gradient that looked great.  I saved the file into Lightroom and it still looks great every time I view it without any banding no matter the zoom setting.  The problem I am having arises when I open this same file into Photoshop now.  The banding on the gradient looks awful.  It seems I cant make any good gradients now.  They all have a hard edge with lots of banding.  Though the photo still looks great in Lightroom, but not in Photoshop?  I even open the same file into Topaz Studio and the gradient looks great. 

Another weird aspect:  From within Photoshop, if I open the camera raw filter the gradient looks great again, but when I press done it goes back to looking bad.  Also, making a gradient from inside the layers Fx blending the gradient looks good, but if I stamp all my layers down the gradient goes back to looking bad banding again! 
 
My settings: Prophoto RGB, 16bit/channel, 300px/inch 4k monitor.  I work with Tiff and Raw files around 5,000x4000px in size.
 
I've even tried recalibrating my monitor and trying different profiles.  I don't get it.  One day its fine the next its not.
 
Any ideas?

If you're using a monitor with 10bits/ch you may be running into issues with Photoshop. You have to have the graphics accelerator on to get 10 bits or it reverts to 8. Also, soft proofing can be very tempermental with different results when selecting the "desaturate colors" check box or not even with the % set to 0. You might play with those settings.
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Dave Rosser

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Re: Gradient Banding Issue
« Reply #5 on: February 04, 2018, 04:14:26 am »

I think that in Lightroom you are not looking at the original gradient but at a pre-view generated by Lightroom. I got caught out by this behaviour.

Dave
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TonyW

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Re: Gradient Banding Issue
« Reply #6 on: February 04, 2018, 06:22:06 am »

As stated by Gary earlier with odd behaviour in PS always worth trashing Preferences to see if the problem still persists.

Also worth checking video drivers up to date or even if they have been updated prior to problem consider rolling back to earlier - it can happen that new drivers cause issues as they get optimised fir gaming.

Try running with GPU acceleration both on and off to see if there is any difference.

If you do have a 10 bit monitor it will only run in 10bit if you have 10 bit video card.  These cards are only available from Nvidia and AMD pro cards Quadro Pro and FirePro respectively.  Other cards may claim 10 bit but will not work in that mode with PS due to the fact that they can only run 10 bit via Direct X (Windows).  Professional applications such as PS use OpenGL 10 bit colour buffers hence the requirement for Quadro or FirePro
« Last Edit: February 04, 2018, 06:28:24 am by TonyW »
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