color banding

[Steve Roberts]

Usually we add a bit of noise and/or work in 16-bit. Try searching the COW for “banding”.

[Greg Quitiquit]

[Steve Roberts] “Usually we add a bit of noise”

Years ago there was actually a simple recipe posted here (or was it over at the old WWUG?) But anyway it involved adding noise as Steve suggests, and some Gaussian Blur. Paradoxically, I’ve noticed that .2 or .3 Gaussian Blur actually makes some images appear sharper in the final video rendering (on an analog monitor, at least.)

It shouldn’t take you too much experimentation to come up with a formula that works for you.

Greg Quitiquit

[Vince Becquiot]

“Heavy” banding would also occur if you rendered in an open GL setting instead of advanced 3D.

Vince

[Vince Becquiot]

Also on a side note, color banding seems to be much more visible on some LCD monitors.

Vince

[Adolfo Rozenfeld]

Some time ago I had the opportunity to use the “Deband” effect, included in one of the Tinderbox plug-in sets. Pretty amazing. Especially designed to remove banding without adding so much noise. I don’t remember which specific Tinderbox set (there are a couple) it was in, since I don’t own it myself.
Of course, a project with 16/32 bit processing, and rendered to a 10 or 16 bit codec should exhibit no banding at all, with no need for a compromise solution.
Hope this helps.

Adolfo Rozenfeld
Buenos Aires – Argentina
https://www.adolforozenfeld.com
adolfo@adolforozenfeld.com