Yeah I've posted about this before. I never seem to get a straight answer. Look at the image. See how the transition of color is banded? That is from just using the airbrush. I cannot and have never been able to use the airbrush or paintbrush without this problem to a varying degree. I can never paint smoothly, the way it is supposed to be. It does not matter what colour I use. It does not matter what method I use. Yes I could add noise to "fix" it - but adding noise does just that: it adds noise. i shouldn't have to do that. What could I be doing wrong? Is it my monitor? Nobody else seems to have this problem. It's really holding me back.

And it's really pissing me off.

if you got yourself a matrox parhelia video card, you'd have 10bits per colour channel for true 30 bit colour. the extra 2 bits per channel make your display go from 16.7 million colours to a few billion. With that, you can say goodbye to colour banding. incidently, 32 bit colour is really just 24 bit (8 bits per channel) plus an 8 bit alpha channel. Ad that alpha channel to the parhelia and you have 38 bit, mwahahaha!!! hmmm, that card's been on my wishlist for awhile...

oh, and incidently, the parhelia's colour display is already supported by most all applications, dvds (non computer dvds display as such), and even video games without any performance loss. Too bad it's a mediocre performer when it comes to benchmarking, but combine that card with one of them 9 megapixel monitor (220 dots per inch, ohhhhhhh man), and you got yourself something to make everyone on the block drool.

So this is happening because of my video card? Do you see the banding in the pic I posted, on your monitor?

I would say that this is not because of your video card, after 16.7 million colors, I dont't think a few more billion is going 2 make a difference. Also this is not worth the file size. If you get a video card, get a PNY Verto 4200 like I have because it works good 4 games as well as whatever. I have no idea about your problems except perhaps that airbrush, paint brush is supposed 2 do this i thought in varying degrees according 2 your oppacity settings and time of application, just like real paint. If you want 2 just fill something with a foreground color, use the keystroke combo of alt&backspace.

Try adding a slight noise to the picture and than using gaussian blur.This should remove most of the bands. You could also try a horizontal motion blur. Joerg

By the way: A new graphics-card won't help much, since Photoshop uses plain old 8-bit-per-channel-RGB and a new graphics-card won't change much. If the graphics card would change your display, you would be in trouble as soon as anyone without this card got the picture...

Attached Link: http://www.matrox.com/mga/products/parhelia/home.cfm

a few billion makes a huge difference in terms of colour banding, educate yourself on the topic before making rash and uneducated statements. Read up the parhelia specs, and check this page out, http://www.matrox.com/mga/products/parhelia/home.cfm I would like to quote something on this page, " 10-bit GigaColor plug-in for Adobe PhotoShop" that plugin is included in the card. Making statements like you guys did makes you sound like those people who come into the forum and ask "What's a Photoshop?" Do a search for crying out loud. And who gives a crap if someone can't see the extra colours from a COMPRESSED JPEG ON RENDEROSITY??? This is for people who are dead serious about their work. "I would say that this is not because of your video card, after 16.7 million colors, I dont't think a few more billion is going 2 make a difference. Also this is not worth the file size." I would like to say, it may be because of the card, a few BILLION does make a difference (count the zeros dammit), and considering how large and inexpensivehard drives and are beoming and considering the pros (much more accurate colour) versus the cons (file size), yes it is worth the tradeoff. "get a PNY Verto 4200 like I have because it works good 4 games as well as whatever." Grimtwist doesnt care about games, but if he did, the Parhelia also supports triple monitor surround gaming (3 monitors off one card in unreal tournament for true peripheral vison, 270 degrees of viewing), then a parhelia would be a good bet too. Duh, what's a monitor? Could someone please explain everything to me of what one is because I don't feel like spending 2 minutes looking for myself, please?

and yes, I see the banding. If I had a parhelia, I'd still see it, because the image itself is isn't 30-bit.

Hmmm. But if I get this new card, and I create images that seemingly have no banding, am I just fooling myself? Wouldn't it look terrible on other people's monitors? As you can tell, Im pretty clueless about this stuff so be patient with me.

**Bottom line is, my equipment is really not much different from anyone elses, yet I am the only person I know who has this problem. I talk to people about banding, and they haven't a clue what I'm on about.

Joerg - I already mentioned adding noise in the first post. Adding noise really only works effectively on small areas. Besides - it's a Band-Aid solution. I want to know why it's happening in the first place and how to avoid it. There is very little useful info on this topic out there on the web, and Adobe themselves seem content to brush over the topic.

It is simply not effective to have to add noise to every square inch of an image because of some mysterious reason.

because the image itself is isn't 30-bit. How do I change that?

Grim, im sorry for being MIA in this issue (i didn't want to tell you to add "noise" which works in small scale though NOT a solution) but i didn't want you to think i was "ditchin' ya".

I currently "mind-numbed" with out friend "ficticious"'s wacom problem. I'm hoping to hear from Mr Bauer (look at me, name-dropping like that my bad! but sometimes you need the Big-Guns!) and i'll ask about your banding issue...

till then keep working on your banner entry, i want it by market closing on Friday! And dispite what ficticious say's, i think you SHOULD continue your covert Poser project ;)

:)
retrocity

well dude, I probably almost certainly wouldnt have noticed the banding if you hadn't pointed it out. If you check out the colour banding, the change in colours isnt drastic at all, maybe one or two points at most, but because it's spread out, it can be noticed. This isn't because you aren't getting the colours that are supposed to be inbetween those colour values, to my eyes it looks like there isn't any colour between those values. Its like a gradient. from afar it looks fine, but zoom in and you can see what looks to be banding. It's just the colours transforming from one to the next. bottom line, I can't for sure tell you what's going on and why its happening. What i said above is whqt I believe to be the culprit, but I'm just some canuck. Bringing up the parhelia was not meant to be a solution by any means, it was just what came to mind when i saw your problem. check out the info on the site, it might prove enlightening as to why it's happening. Very few video cards are 10-bit per channel, and not a single ATI/Nvidia chip that i know of is. Maybe some 3D Labs and whatnot perhaps... as for changing your image to 30-bit, get a matrox parhelia that is capable of displaying imagery at 30-bit, install the pluging for photoshop that comes with the card, and then you can see. I won't though cause i use a Radeon.

incidently, i dont think its your video card or monitor. If it was, it would display properly on my monitor, which it doest. Rohyphnol once had a problem with jaggies all over the place that I couldn't see. turned out he didn't have antialiasing turned on.

low res like about 100dpi or less....also the more diffuse the airbrush the worse the problem can be (like a 200 or 300 brush) but generally I don't get the problem with higher res images such as around 200dpi and above and the brush size doesn't matter. - have you tried that? (and then reduce the res for the final image) (btw I colour my stuff on a 900mhz, 256mb Acer laptop in p/shop 5 or 7)

I usually work at around 300 dpi. I've also tried toying around with brush sizes and brush spacing - I can reduce the problem but it is still obvious.

**But something I neglected to mention was this:

I do not have a banding problem when I paint in Z Brush.

I did not have a banding problem when I used to use Paint Shop Pro.

That is why I do not believe it has anything to do with my equipment.

Color-combinations also seem unrelated.

Thanks all, for your help thus far.

On another note:

Retro - I regret I will not be entering the banner contest. I have tried and failed. Your rules are too exclusive.

just to clarify, i meant to type "doesn't" in my last post

Yeah, I got it ;)