[MooseAndSquirrel]

Why when digital or film pictures are displayed onscreen there is almost always those wavy digital-artifact-like horizontal lines that appear (especially in the blue sky)? Is that a result of too little pixel resolution- or overprocessing of the image, etc.? I know I've heard an explanation before but can't remember. Thx! M&S

[Tom]

I think it's called banding. It's more obvious if the monitor displaying the picture doesn't have enough colors to display the fine variation in color. I think overprocessing can cause this because i.e. when you blur a picture to remove noise it results in a finer distribution of colors, but there are probably other ways this can happen too. How many colors is your monitor displaying? I think it can also result if the picture was saved with not enough colors.

[MooseAndSquirrel]

[Tom]

As far as blurring, when I stitch panoramas I tend to blur portions of the sky at the seams to make them less noticeable. I noticed if I do too much I can see the effects of banding. In your case I'm not really sure what's going on. Does the original picture look good? You shouldn't be getting banding from what you are doing. I haven't noticed it in any of the pictures you've posted.

[MooseAndSquirrel]

Well, this is indeed interesting. Yes, I've see banding in almost all my pics online, incl. my current wallpaper shot of the same Winchester Mtn. as in my trip report post. Also the two other pics there with sky showing. Actually all my stored raw pics downloaded from the camera have that banding in the lighter areas(sky) of the image. I just assumed this was how pics display onscreen. I haven't printed any pics in quite a while to see if it shows up in those pics. I have what was at the time a quality Sony Vivitron (Trinitron) 17" monitor. I must do some further research on this! Thanks for your help!

[Newt]

Recently I've noticed the same thing. For me it only happens when viewing the thumbs in fototime and only those that I've used a polarizer on. Full size they're ok. Just 2 pennies NN

[MooseAndSquirrel]

Interesting NN. I use a polarizer frequently, not always full power so to speak. I just checked an un-processed raw image downloaded from my camera & both thumbnailed and full size it has this banding. I know I've read about this banding thing before.... M&S

[Tom]

I took a closer look at your winchester pics and I guess I do see faint banding in the sky. Do you see banding in other people's pics or just your own?

[MooseAndSquirrel]

Yes, on many pics on the site. Some of your (& BPJ's avatar) avatars, Larry's pic in Wing Lk Panorama thread titled "Larch large left blue", Dean Brittain's "lake.jpg" Sept. 29 in "Don't name it" thread as well as Duncan's "Alpine Lk." Oct 2 post in same thread. All just examples of many more, especially noticeable with blue sky in them. I don't see dead people- just banding!

[Tom]

I don't see it in BPJ's avatar or any of those pics. Perhaps it's your video card?

[MooseAndSquirrel]

Could be. But you said you saw faint banding in my Winchester photos too, that makes it sound like it's not only seen on my screen. ?? Can I ask Tom, if you've seen this phenomena elsewhere onscreen and I looked at another site displaying photos and I noticed it there as well (this is driving me nuts now) and in one picture's cloudy sky the different shapes and whirls of the clouds were accentuated, repeated whatever, in a sort of faint ring effect like when water ripples away from the spot where a rock is tossed in. Anyway, it does sound like my display/card might have some problems- it is 5 years old. Here's the pic: http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=1815569

[Backpacker Joe]

i'm innocent, i'm innocent. Well, at least i'm NOT guilty of messing with my avatar. TB

[Newt]

The only ripples I see are around the edges of the mountains, trees etc. If this is what you mean, my understanding is it's called artifacting. I guess it takes place when the photo is compressed too much to get to a smaller size. Thats one of the troubles I have with 4 meg photos that need to be compressed to 100K or less. NN

[Tom]

I don't see any banding in that pic. If you're talking about the JPEG artifacting around the trees, well I guess I see a little, but it's not very noticeable unless you look closely.

[MooseAndSquirrel]

Okay guys, I went ahead and did some messin' around and found that my video adapter/card was set at 16bit (thousands of colors) and I have a higher setting available of 32bit (millions)- after changing the setting the problem is solved! Tom you were right on dude. I'd give ya a kiss but we must keep up appearances big fella. I've had my monitor at this setting forever and just got use to the display I guess. My only worry is I think recalling a long time ago that the 32bit display wasn't recommended for my display for some reason, so I'll check with the manufacturer about this. Apparently some systems have a 24bit display setting but mine just offers these two. Thanks very much for the help I appreciate it. I understand what you mean by the jpeg artifacting too.