Color banding is a serious issue you can face while editing your photos or doing printing tasks. You can imagine color noise as any unwanted lines or gradients within your images. This will happen mostly when you do the post-processing tasks with your images. In this article, we are going to discuss the topic of color banding and let you know how you can fix this issue as well.
These are the visible changes you can see in your images whenever you apply any effects to them. You will notice the banding effects when you are working with pixel pitch or fewer bits per pixel and the colors are set at 16-256. So, the basic solution to this issue can be increasing the number of pixels.
Color banding can be considered as color posterization by some people. But, it is a different thing from that. You can’t even think about fixing this issue by increasing the blur.
Most professional photographers are afraid of this thing because it can destroy the overall beauty of any image. The banding effects can be seen mostly when you are dealing with plain colors. In the images where things like sky, plain water, and walls are present, you will get to see the color banding effect a lot more.
In other words, if you are trying to apply any effect to an image where the sky is appearing, if everything doesn’t go well in terms of image enhancement, you will get to see the color banding effect.
For example, you have just clicked an image of mountains with an open and clear sky. Now, when you open the image in Photoshop and start to edit it. You would surely try to apply some adjustment layers.
But, when you change the color a little bit, you start to see some unwanted gradient lines around the sky. These shapes will appear in a circular form. So, you would get to see them in different colors.
Now, this issue can be annoying because you may not be able to get it fixed just by applying another adjustment layer. Don’t worry if you are stuck in the same issue. We are going to help you fix the problem here.
What is color banding and Explain it’s Causes?
If we talk theoretically, color banding is a phenomenon that happens when different values within a gradient are pushed higher. When these values go way higher than the adequate limits, the image ends up without any color that can represent those changes mathematically.
But, sometimes, it is very important to go beyond those limits. For example, you may want to insert a hue to your image and change the color of your sky but this may get interrupted because the banding may start to get in.
If you are a professional, you may want to do that and this may end up causing several hassles for you. Color banding can result in serious issues when you talk about images with low resolution. It is fairly easy to get it fixed on high-resolution images.
However, fixing this problem is never an easy task. In some cases, you can’t even apply the changes a little bit because the color banding issue starts to appear with the first application itself.
This is the case when the color depth is too low that it can’t support the color transition.
Now, when the color starts to change a little bit, the changes are applied abnormally and that’s where you start to see the color grading issues.
What causes color banding (Colored Noise)?
The lack of color range within a certain area of your image can cause color banding. This tonal range is required when you need different colors to represent the dark and bright points within a gradient.
If you take an example, an 8-bit photograph will have 256 tonal values per color. But, a 16-bit photograph will have much higher values. So, you can get to see color grading issues in your 8-bit image.
The basic reason for banding is not having that much color variation to represent similar color ranges.
In simple words, when you have a huge seamless area in your image e.g. a clear sky where too many color variations of a single color are present, you need a big tonal range as well.
In order to represent those huge color ranges, your image should have a higher bit configuration along with a wider color range. When your image lacks those higher tonal values, you start to see color banding.
The effect will not appear all the time. But, you will see it mostly when there are seamless visuals available in your image.
How to check color banding in Photoshop?
You can simply make use of Photoshop to check for color banding issues. In most cases, you will be able to check and observe it. But, when the banding values are highly subtle and you can’t see it with your eyes, you may want to use some methods for checking it. Below are the steps to do the same using Adobe Photoshop.
- Open your image in Photoshop and go to the Channels tab. Now, you will have to check for Red, Green, and Blue channels one by one. Using these color channels, it becomes very easy to detect if the color banding is there in your image.
- You can also create a solar curve using Photoshop again. You just have to add a new adjustment layer by selecting the curve adjustment mode. Now, you will have to take our curve and start to make a wave by pulling the lines up and down. This will create a solar output on your image. With this effect enables, you can easily observe the banding. You can then disable the layer or delete it to get your image back.
Doing these methods are not necessary if you can clearly see the color banding in your image. These steps are good when you are not aware of whether the banding issues are there or not.
How to fix, Stop or Remove Color Banding Issues in 8-bit and 16-bit images ( Identifying and Repairing )?
The methods of fixing color banding can be different as per the type of your image. So, we suggest you check the type of your image first of all. If your image is 8-bit, follow the first method but if it’s of 16-bit, you should go for the second method.
For 8-bit images
- Just open your image in Adobe Photoshop and select the impacted areas using any selection tool
- Now, create a new layer using the same selection.
- Now, turn On the solar adjustment layer and see the banding if you want
- Choose the brush strokes group and choose Spatter. Make sure to adjust the spray radius to a high value.
- Just set the max value of spray radius to 25 and smoothness to 1 and then you can hit Ok.
With these settings, you will be able to eliminate the banding effects in your 8-bit image.
For 16-bit images
- Open your image in Adobe Photoshop and create a new overlay layer
- This new layer should be filled with 50% gray.
- Now, go to Filter>Noise>Add Noise to add noise
- The distribution should be set to Gaussian and noise level should vary as per the available banding effect
- Mask out the overlay layer from the part of an image that doesn’t have a banding problem.
Now, you can see if your image is free from the color banding. If you are still seeing the issue, you can read some online articles or follow YouTube videos for a piece of better information.
What is the color banding effect?
The effect would look like some dark or bright lights inside a seamless area. As we discussed earlier, these areas will have a single color within a large section of your image. So, when your image requires a higher range of colors, it must have a proper range for the same.
For example, your sky is of blue color but the color is not exactly blue and of the same value on the whole area. So, when your image is not able to recreate those levels, you will start to see banding effects.
In some locations, you will get to see lines that represent different colors. You may also see large or small sections of different colors. But, you know that your sky was of the same color. So, that difference is known as the color banding effect.
How to Avoid HDR Color Banding?
The best and the basic method to avoid HDR color banding is to never push the post-processing values too high. This all begins with the photography as well. If you are capturing an image, just try to click uncompressed images and decrease the exposure as well in the HDR monitor.
Now, when it comes to post-processing, you can simply add some extra exposure if you want. At that time, the color grading issue would not appear.
But, if you were using a very high exposure value, you may find issues with the color noise during the post-processing or editing. You can use multiple adjustment layers while doing the RAW conversion.
You should get your work done at that time to overcome the hassles during the editing tasks.
Final Words
We hope you have got enough and the required information about the color banding effect with this article. You should surely try these methods to fix the issue on any of your images.
If you have any other suggestions or ideas about this article, just let us know in the comment section. You can tell us about any other article you may want to read here.
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