Posterization/Banding issue on solid colored seamless paper

In the past, I've typically shot on white or black paper backgrounds or on location. I recently shot a project on thunder grey seamless paper for a client. During my retouch, I'm noticing banding (or what I guess may be called posterization) around the gradations of the lighting around the model. I've tried many different things to get rid of it including not using plugins and changing GPU settings on Photoshop (from advanced to basic).
Here's my workflow:
1. RAW processing via Capture One 8
2. Exporting RAW as 16-bit TIFF (no sharpening) in Prophoto RGB
3. Making edits (when using any plugins, I have masked out the background to make sure an 8bit plugin isn't affecting the background)
3a: plugins used Imagenomic Portraiture and RadLab, plus Nik Software for output sharpening
4. Reduce size and output sharpen
5. Save for web
Here's the RAW (saved for web)
Here's the processed RAW saved from a TIFF for the web:
Here's the retouched image, saved for the web:
It's hard to truly illustrate it how it looks on my iMac. But if you focus your eyes to look for the rainbow like ring, you'll be able to see the jagged edges where there isn't smooth transition in the gradients and you'll see some colored posterization streaks within it. I tried blurring but it just gets worse. Any solutions or any idea where this comes from?
All photos from my shoot were shot at 1/160 shutter, f/11 aperature, and 100 ISO on a Canon 5D MKIII tethered to Capture One 8.
Thanks!

The one thing that helps a lot, is to convert your raw files to 16 bits from the start and stay there until the end of your workflow.
The other thing is to apply some Grain to the offending element in the image or to the whole image. I emphasize: grain, not digital noise.
The best suite of grain management filters ever was and remains GrainSurgery, which Adobe acquired when they bought the assets of Visual Infinity years ago and promptly killed. I heard that some of the filters were rolled into After Effects, which I've never used.
You could use the trial version of AE and see and see if the filters are actually there. They were:
Add Grain,
Auto Match Grain,
Match Grain,
Remove Grain, and
Sample Grain
I keep Ps CS4 installed on my Macs alongside CS6, so I can still use Grain Surgery filters whenever I need them. On the Mac you can run two (or more) different versions of Photoshop simultaneously, you just have to launch the older version first. CS6 cannot run the filters because they require PPC or Universal code.

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Posterization/Banding Issue

I've been having an issue w/ posterization/banding in my images. I've been using Photoshop for a couple of years now and never had this problem until a couple weks ago when I started using an EyeOne calibration device.
It only affects images in PS and strikes randomly. It does not print and usually doesn't SaveAs. It will sometimes disappear when I close/reopen an image, so thankfully, it's not permanent, but very annoying when trying to edit. I thougth it was a bad profile, but I selected a different one and the same thing happens. If it was a video card issue, wouldn't it affect the whole monitor, all applications, websites etc., not just PS? Any idea what the problem might be?

The one thing that helps a lot, is to convert your raw files to 16 bits from the start and stay there until the end of your workflow.
The other thing is to apply some Grain to the offending element in the image or to the whole image. I emphasize: grain, not digital noise.
The best suite of grain management filters ever was and remains GrainSurgery, which Adobe acquired when they bought the assets of Visual Infinity years ago and promptly killed. I heard that some of the filters were rolled into After Effects, which I've never used.
You could use the trial version of AE and see and see if the filters are actually there. They were:
Add Grain,
Auto Match Grain,
Match Grain,
Remove Grain, and
Sample Grain
I keep Ps CS4 installed on my Macs alongside CS6, so I can still use Grain Surgery filters whenever I need them. On the Mac you can run two (or more) different versions of Photoshop simultaneously, you just have to launch the older version first. CS6 cannot run the filters because they require PPC or Universal code.

Screen Issues: Flashing Solid Colors

So, my iBook was working this morning, however, after traveling with it the screen doesn't seem to work. It starts all gray, then all red, then all green, then all blue, then black, then fuzzy gray. What happened and what can I do?

imoore,
Try plugging an external VGA monitor into the mini socket on the side of your iBook. You'll need the mini to VGA adapter. I think they came with the iBook since I see a lot of them.
Good external - Good GPU, bad LVDS cable or display.
Problem same on external - most likely GPU detached from logic board. Try shim fix or pressure on lower part of heat sink.
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Peter -
Is it there when you zoom in? No amount of zoom or lack thereof changes the situaiton.
Is it there if you increase its point size? Nope.
Is it there if you change the font? Nope.
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Sudden banding issue with Mac and new Canon printer, already called tech

Good morning fellow Elementites.
I have been using Photoshop Elements 12 on my MacBook Pro 13 inch, running Maverick OS, printing to HP Photosmart Premium all-in one with no banding issues, ever.
I did want to upgrade my printer and monitor so I purchased the Canon Pixma Pro 100 and a new external LG IPS monitor to view the PSE program.
I also purchased ColorMunki Display to calibrate the monitor. Everything is operational with the recommended settings for color etc.
I printed a .tiff image and a .jpg through the PSE print function. The images that looked perfect on the new monitor and Macbook monitor printed with banding. I called Canon tech support. The man had me perform a few tasks to make sure the printer was operating correctly. We printed test sheets from the printer and they were all as they should be.
He the said he NEVER prints from PSE. He edits in PSE but prints using Canon's EZ share or print or whatever it's called, doesn't matter cause I do NOT LIKE IT AT ALL. Not to mention it is just another step in the work flow. Not to mention that I paid good money for a photo editing program of high quality and I want to use ALL the features.
He said the problem isn't the printer but the printing software instructions TO the printer via the Mac OS printer system, or something like this is what he said. He also had me download some other updates and driver files. He then had me remove the printer from my printer list and then add it back.
He then had me print the .jpg image, (it only prints .jpg which is annoying as heck,) and it came out SO BEAUTIFUL I ALMOST CRIED
I want to print this quality THROUGH PSE. Does anyone have a clue as to what to do to resolve the issue? None of the suggestions in other threads from the past seem appropriate enough.
Eager to hear,
Regards.

I have returned home and have copied down all the settings so that I may post them here before I do any more fiddling. Maybe something glaring will be spotted before I start changing things.
I opened an image in PSE 12.
I chose from the PSE menu at the top of the monitor, FILE >PRINT
A window appears with my photo and boxes and such: 1. Select Printer> CANON PRO 100-SERIES (The other printer isn't concern now).
Select Paper Size and Orientation, no problems with this or any of the other settings in this window.
I then select MORE OPTIONS button at bottom of window.
Another window opens.
There are 3 options listed on the left hand side PRINTING CHOICES which it is automatically on, CUSTOM PRINT SIZE which I haven't needed yet, and COLOR MANAGEMENT.
I select COLOR MANAGEMENT.
COLOR HANDLING is set to PRINTER MANAGES COLOR.
IMAGE SPACE is listed, not in any box, as sRGB IEC61966-2.1
PRINTER PROFILE is listed in a box that is grayed out and not selectable, as CANON IJ COLOR PRINTE...
RENDERING INTENT is set in a selectable box as RELATIVE COLORMETRIC.
(There is a little mssg below all this that reminds me to remember to enable color management in the printer preferences dialog. I was never able to find this action and after doing some research I read that this mssg is a boo boo as the function is automatic in MAC running Maverick, supposedly).
I then click OK and the box goes away.
I then click the PAGE SET UP button.
A window titled PRINT opens.
The Printer selection box says CANON PRO=100 series.
The next box always confuses me because nothing in the list appears to pertain to me when I want to print my photos. It is the Presets box.
I believe FAST PRINTING ON PLAIN PAPER is always showing when I open this window. But I don't want that so I always look to see if there is something I should choose that applies. I don't know what they mean by DEFAULT SETTINGS in this case. LAST USED SETTINGS would be ok if that was what I wanted each time I printed. FAST and FINE on Plain Paper? I have been assuming they mean plain copy paper so I don't choose that. SAVE CURRENT SETTINGS AS PRESET, I don't choose that because I haven't been sure of the settings. And the SHOW PRESETS does me no good becuase you can't change anything in there.
PAPER SIZE, not an issue at the moment.
LAYOUT button is my next stop, by now I am exhausted
I look at COLOR MATCHING which shows CANON COLOR MATCHING as the selected method. (The other choice is COLOR SYNC but I don't know anything about that one and haven't been told to change it.)
PAPER HANDLING & COVER PAGE, N/A at this time.
QUALITY & MEDIUM. I choose my paper type, paper source, print quality which for my photos I select HIGH. I don't touch COLOR OPTIONS because that is scary looking. And BORDER and MARGIN I have no issue with.
I then hit SAVE and the window closes.
Then I select PRINT in the lower right of the window that has my photo in it and from which I acessed all these other things.
Phew. So, can anyone tell me if they see anything wrong here, PLEASE.
Regards,
P.

Severe banding issue in shadow areas

Short Version: Having severe banding issues in shadow areas in Lightroom. Need to know how/what to set my color profile to to fix this issue. Lengthier description and images below.
I have read several posts here in the Lightroom forums about others who are experiencing the same type of banding issues, but I haven't seen any definitive answers on how to solve the problem.
I was able to take a couple screenshots of the issue that I am seeing. The image looks very different in Photoshop, Lightroom, Windows Photo Gallery, and also rendered in IE7. Screenshots of the image in Lightroom and the image in Photoshop are posted below at a 100% crop of the affected area. The first image is how it appears in Lightroom and the second image is how it appears in Photoshop.
From what I have read elsewhere the problem has to do with how Lightroom uses color profiles. I do not have much experience with color profiles, so I'd like to get everyone's recommendation on what color profile I should be using, and maybe a link to some information on setting color profiles and how to fix this issue. The image looks so much different in Lightroom than it does elsewhere, that I can't see myself being able to trust Lightroom to process my images.
Some info on my setup. Shoot RAW with Canon Rebel XT. Use a Dell with Pentium D running Windows Vista. Monitor is a Dell 2007FP, and currently I am using the Dell 2007FP color profile as far as I can tell.
Screenshot of image with banding in Lightroom
Screenshot of image as displayed in Photoshop

Don, Bob!
I think it is quite obvious that the Eric's problem is not banding per se (and the related cure by fiddling with black setting), but rather about the mismatch between how the file looks in LR's Develop 100% view and how the same file (or an exported file) looks in Photoshop.
Eric!
I am afraid there is no definite answer to this problem. Indeed there are a number of Windows users that have reported this problem. A very exhaustive and inconclusive thread is this:
http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx?128@@.3bc3578d
The bottom line so far seems to be this:
LR on Windows uses Windows ICM to generate how the image looks on the screen, while PS uses Adobe own engine to generate this. Somehow this set-up appears not to work reliably with LR - the on-screen image in LR 100% develop differs from the same file's appearance in PS or other color managed applications. The mystery here is that other applications that seem to use Windows ICM still manage to show image correctly, but not LR. But anyway, the Windows ICM appears to be the culprit here.
The amount of difference people see depends on the complexity of the monitor profile used. LUT based Version 4.0 profiles will be affected worst - not only shadow detail, but the overall tonality and colors may be off. The best match is achieved with simple matrix based version 2.0 profiles - on my machine the mismatch occurs only in deep shadows were I see banding/splotchiness in LR and only under certain Develop settings.
(Incidentallly, on Windows XP (and older) machines one should ALWAYS use ver 2.0 profiles, as Windows ICM does not support ver 4.0 profiles. I also think that Windows ICM cannot handle LUT based profiles correctly. My own experiments showed that using LUT based monitor profile resulted in mismatch between PS CS2 and other applications (like Canon DPP), not only LR. BTW - as you are using generic monitor profile, I can almost bet that it is a matrix ver 2.0 profile (good thing).)
I am curious about the Vista thing though. I had certain hopes that this image appearance problem in LR would be eliminated on Vista, as it uses the Microsoft's new Windows Color System which incororates an updated ICM that now supports ver 4.0 profiles and reportedly has many bugs of the previous ICM fixed. However, if your report is true and the image mismatch is not due to some other factors, then it seems that Vista does not solve this.

Dell u2410 BANDING issues

I use my DELL U2410 as my external monitor and I got some banding issues in some of the color. Especially in Blue and Black. It looks very pixelated.
The driver provided by DELL is only for Windows and I tried to look for somehting online to see if there is a driver out there but couldnt find any.
My display settings are
Colors: Millions
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Option: Overscan is ticked.
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Have you tried a new cable?

Banding Issues with GeForce 8800

Hi,
I just installed CS4 Production Premium on a new Mac Pro. The system specs are:
2x 3 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
10GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB
2x 1TB SAS drives
Samsung 30" Syncmaster 305T Plus
OSX 10.5.6 (both OSX and CS4 are up to date)
When I was working in After Effects, I noticed some dramatic banding issues when lighting a scene. I was curious, so I created a gradient and the same banding was visible. I tried creating a gradient in PS, AI and Flash: same results. Consistent across all CS4 products, and the image depth (8bit, 16bit or 32bit) doesn't affect it at all. Applying a blur effect to any image also produces banding.
I tried finding some gradients through Google image search. They look fine in Firefox, but when I open them in Photoshop the banding once again pops up. Same in Preview to some extent, but not as drastic.
Two other guys in my office are running CS4 with the same monitor. We're running identically calibrated color profiles, and working in the same color space. They have no problems. The only difference between their setup and mine is that they're using Macbook Pros.
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All the work I'm doing is for screen, so printers don't factor into the equation. I'd appreciate any tips or suggestions anyone can offer.

Well, one thing I notice is that attempting to open the linked .png in Photoshop, it has an embedded "SyncMaster" profile.
Opening it in Photoshop CS4, maintaining that profile, I see banding (although very subtle in the second (bottom) example). The top example exhibits a stippled effect at the band edges at 100% scale.
Opening it and converting it to Adobe RGB 1998, I see almost no sign of banding in that bottom example.
Opening it as is in Preview, I see the banding again.
Creating a new radial gradient in Photoshop CS4, 1300 pixels wide, #666666 to #000000, at 100% scale, it is a smooth transition with the barest hint of banding. Also, my #666666 is noticeably lighter than in your example.
Offhand, I'm not sure which factors affect your workflow. But I doubt it is your video card unless it is set for, say 16 bit or 8 bit...
Neil

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Hi,
so maybe I should apply coordinates?--> you have to :) a texture can only successfully be put on an object, if there are coordinates, which describe the position, size, adjustment etc.. Texture coordinates can either be assigned to the object (for each vertex of the geometry), or to be generated automatically (in form of the class TexCoordGeneration and assigned
to the Appearance).
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Regards,
Oliver

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How can I make the background one solid color? It is too difficult and noticeable when I use the retouch button and try to erase all the creases in my backdrop. So, how can I have just a solid white background?

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When talking about a specific image posting the image may be useful.
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any ideas gratefully received !

YESSSS !!!!
sanity restored.....you, sir, are a genius.
thankyou.

Posterization/Banding issue on solid colored seamless paper

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