How can I avoid banding on black areas when process images on BW?
Here you have an example of one image that I like a lot, on web size you cannot see banding but if I print big it really sucks
You have two images of 100% crops of the same are (top left corner)
The grey one it is with right histogram, but I wan to achieve that darker look, please help me with techniques to avoid that loss of quality.
The one thing which immediately comes to mind is to ask whether you are working in 8 bit or 16 bit color? The latter gives you a bit more flexibility and is less likely to result in banding occurring.
If you have already converted the image to 8 bit, it would makes some sense to convert back to 16 bit before making the contrast adjustment. In this case, you have already lost information that won't be recovered but at least you will have a bit more flexibility with what you do have. It certainly won't hurt anything else.
Beyond that, I really can't help all that much. BW, or even monocolor, just doesn't play well with me.
Pedro, have you tried lightly blurring the area where the banding occurs.
If you want the texture back again just add a bit of noise.
this might just work on some images at least.
Adding some random noise in PS will definitely help with banding (posterization). But I've never tried to do it in just a small area - or too a file that was otherwise very smooth (hard to tell how noiseless this one is at web size). Perhaps something like adding noise across the whole sky, blurring it slightly, then re-sharpening slightly could smooth things out without too much noise?
I agree that adding noise/grain is just about the only way to resolve posterization/banding.
However, I don't care to use the Add Noise filter in PS.
My preferred method of adding grain involves downloading the grain field that you'll find here, paste it on top of the image, set the layer blend mode to Overlay and then adjust opacity to taste.
You might think that blurring the area would work, but that just introduces another very destructive editing step which just exacerbates the problem, which is the last thing you need at this stage.
Also agree that working with 16 bit files can help stop the introduction of artifacts like this at a slower rate than working on 8 bit files.
Discussion
8 repliesHere you have an example of one image that I like a lot, on web size you cannot see banding but if I print big it really sucks
You have two images of 100% crops of the same are (top left corner)
The grey one it is with right histogram, but I wan to achieve that darker look, please help me with techniques to avoid that loss of quality.
Thank you very much
If you have already converted the image to 8 bit, it would makes some sense to convert back to 16 bit before making the contrast adjustment. In this case, you have already lost information that won't be recovered but at least you will have a bit more flexibility with what you do have. It certainly won't hurt anything else.
Beyond that, I really can't help all that much. BW, or even monocolor, just doesn't play well with me.
If you want the texture back again just add a bit of noise.
this might just work on some images at least.
Wim
http://www.thelightsrightstudio.com/photoshop-tools.htm
However, I don't care to use the Add Noise filter in PS.
My preferred method of adding grain involves downloading the grain field that you'll find here, paste it on top of the image, set the layer blend mode to Overlay and then adjust opacity to taste.
You might think that blurring the area would work, but that just introduces another very destructive editing step which just exacerbates the problem, which is the last thing you need at this stage.
Also agree that working with 16 bit files can help stop the introduction of artifacts like this at a slower rate than working on 8 bit files.