Banding

fwtep wrote on 3/22/2007, 3:26 PM
In the Color Finesse thread Glenn posted a really cool veg file that illustrates three different color settings in Vegas ( ) but I see a lot of banding. That thread is too big now to discuss that so I thought I'd start another thread.

Here's a zip file of a Photoshop image I made that has a layer for each of the three settings in Glenn's file. I copied them to the clipboard in Vegas, then pasted them into layers in Photoshop. Then, just to make it more pronounced I added a Contrast layer. Take a look at the file and look at each of the layers, with and without the extra contrast to see the banding. I know that 8bit is pretty lousy, but I didn't think it was THAT bad, so could there be something that's just not set right in my Vegas (v6)?

Fred

Comments

GlennChan wrote on 3/23/2007, 1:15 AM
I think it's an inherent limitation to 8-bit --> processing --> 8-bit, even if you did the processing in a higher bit depth.

For example, bring the gradient into Photoshop. If you use Photoshop's curve on a 8-bit gradient, you'll still get banding even if you flip Photoshop into 16-bit mode.

Starting with a gradient generated in a higher bit depth would help things though; the same applies for 10-bit input.
farss wrote on 3/23/2007, 1:22 AM
Perhaps if starting with an 8 bit source some form of dithering and/or interpolation could be used?
fwtep wrote on 3/23/2007, 3:28 PM
Thanks. The problem is that I can start out at whatever bit depth I want, because it's animation, and I need to avoid banding. Let's hope Vegas crashes through the 8-bit barrier this year.

Fred
www.flickerscope.com
John_Cline wrote on 3/23/2007, 5:10 PM
Might you be using an LCD monitor? Some LCDs can only display a dithered 6-bit image. The early revision Dell 2407 24" widescreen monitors had serious banding issues.
fwtep wrote on 3/23/2007, 9:05 PM
No, a CRT. But even if it was an LCD, Photoshop would still show that the problem is the image not the display device.