Hey Adrienne,

Hope you don't mind me jumping in here on your image's page.

First, nice shot.

Clarity is good. Colours are nice and natural. Exposure is good, as well.

And I like how you composed your image. Lackluster sky (Mother Nature's fault) is made up for by the foreground grasses.

Add in some more visual interest by the somewhat diagonal line of the tarmac.. good good work.


Now then.. here you go, some reading material as to the 'why' I jumped in:

"Bit Depth"; courtesy of cambridgeincolour.com.

I had to check my own monitor/video/graphic card settings to be sure that what I was viewing/seeing in your photo ... wasn't on my receiving end. As I have been experiencing some problems with a buggy graphics card driver. Which.. if my rig crashes, resets the bit depth to only that of 16-bit.

End result?

I will see 'banding' happening/occurring. Till I reset to 32-bit. Or, in other words and from my OS ... back to the setting of 'Colour Quality - Highest (32-bit).


There may be other reasons that I am seeing this in the sky (post processing? maybe?) ... but, this seems to be the one. Meaning, that you've uploaded an image at less than optimal bit-depth.

(You can refer to the linked page above, "Bit Depth Visualization". Where you can click on the options of '24 bpp', '16 bpp' or '8 bpp' ... to see the differences between. And in turn, explains away my wall of text.)


Maybe some others can weigh in on this note. Let's wait and see..


That said, and but of course ... thank you for sharing this one with us. There are a number of enthusiasts on the site that will enjoy this one. :o)

Well, I can see what Les is referring to and I have seen it in other people's images too. I just recalibrated my monitor today, set at 32 bit color, and I don't think my video card is responsible.

The image is bright and colorful and quite interesting. I don't know what type of plane that is. I like the angle of the runway.

Someone explained this to me once and I am going to run off and see if I can find that explanation too. I may return. I also expect to check out Les' link.

No, it wasn't an explanation that I found, but a comment on one of my posts from tealeaves, who stated, " I'm seeing banding in the frame gradient and I'm not sure if it was intentional. I have seen this in my own post work whilst applying a gradient to a frame, and in my case it was not intentional. Does anyone know how to remove the banding? Or does this perhaps have something to do with my monitor?"
I guess she was on the right track mentioning the monitor. I followed the link and understand the concept, but how it applies to your image and mine I am not sure.

A bit in depth for me. Suffice it to say I like the Patriotic look of this.

VFS-TicK

I have had that happen to some of my skies, and it happened in post editing, but I can't remember what the problem was. I like the view of the aircraft, and the angle of the runway.

I have had that problem as well in some of mine, but not sure why. I'm wondering if this is some sort of cargo plane, or special transport? Good capture in any case. Tigs♥ =^..^=

The banding is often called 'posterization' because of the blocked-up colors. I've struggled with it in my images too. I usually see it in gradients, like your sky, that have a very subtle change of brightness or color from one side to the other. If you open this picture in Photoshop and look at the Levels histogram, you'll see lots of spiky lines on the right side. To me, it looks like the sky was overexposed and the highlights were clipped, then you readjusted the white point settings to balance the exposure. However, with the highlights clipped, there wasn't enough information to maintain detail in the sky and hence the banding effect. Although it won't save this shot because of the clipping, to lessen or prevent banding in other pictures I always convert an image to 16 bit before doing any saturation or contrast changes. Or better yet, only shoot in RAW and avoid working in 8 bit altogether. When you're done, save a copy of the final version as a 16 bit TIFF file or Photoshop document (.psd) before converting it back down to 8 bit for posting to the web. That way, you'll always have a high quality first generation file to go back to if you want to edit it some more.

There's a pretty good explanation of why it's better to work in 16 bit vs 8 bit over at Luminous Landscape:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/bit-depth.shtml

The banding is there Adrienne..Just stick a heavy gradient filter over it and use the cloud brush to finish off.Saves all that messing about..Nice image R.

As a fan of the natural photos, good photography with only needed editing.. for me I prefer this like it is. Ofcourse I am happy with advises from Les :-) he knows so much about editing, I think we all can learn from him! But.. a matter of taste too.. and I think you have done a good one with this posting! Mich

A very lovely photo of the plane,the angle is very good,pleasant colors too.I see the banding too.

Impressive plane and very good work.

Lovely photo of the plane,Adrienne.

The banding is there but I think you have gotten some very good advice about that problem. It is a very nice photo of the plane otherwise.

Outstanding capture Adrienne, they sure are big planes. Super detail and clarity, I really like it

Very good angle Adrienne !!
This shot is clear and very well taken my friend !

A very nice shot of this Navy C-2A Greyhound cargo plane, Adie. And believe it or not, it lands and takes off from aircraft carriers. Personally, it's not a ride I'd like to take. :)

- Steve (USN, Retired)

Hello Adrienne.....This is a very good closeup showing plenty of detail and colour in the plane...It is very nice of Steve above to let us all know to what type of aircraft it is....Well done....All the very best to you Adrienne..........................................Mick.