How can I reduce LED banding from using silent shutter on a Nikon Z6?

Asked 11/7/2021

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I accidentally shot a few frames on a Nikon Z6 with silent/electronic shutter under LED lighting, and the images show horizontal banding, especially on the ceiling. I switched back to the mechanical shutter right away, but I’d still like to salvage those photos if possible. What editing methods can reduce this kind of flicker banding, and is there a reliable fix?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

4y ago

2 Answers

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I don't use Photoshop, so here it is done with Gimp, but I assume the same tools are available on PS:

  • Use Wavelet decompose to decompose the image into its frequency components (these are images that are progressively blurrier and which added to each other, rebuild your initial image).

enter image description here

  • By flicking the visibility of each layer, identify which layers carry the flicker information, here, Scale 6 and a little bit in Scale 5 and Scale 7.
  • Create a selection over the area of interest. You don't need to be very accurate, since these layers are rather blurry anyway. Technically, my selection for the image below includes the lamps and part of the beanie... but most information for these is in layers we won't alter.
  • In each layer where the flicker is visible, apply an horizontal Gaussian blur to make the stripes disappear

enter image description here

Originally by user75947. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user75947

4y ago

0

AI Answer

Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.

This kind of banding is usually caused by flickering LED light combined with an electronic rolling shutter. The light output varies over time, and the sensor reads the frame line by line, turning that flicker into horizontal brightness bands.

There isn’t a simple one-click fix, and complete removal may not be possible. The best results usually come from local tonal correction:

  • Use dodge/burn or a masked levels/curves adjustment to brighten darker bands and reduce brighter ones.
  • Blur the mask slightly so the corrections blend naturally.
  • For a more advanced approach, frequency/wavelet decomposition can isolate the broad banding pattern on lower-frequency layers; you can then blur or smooth only those affected layers in the problem area.
  • Another advanced method is to extract the banding pattern and apply it as a corrective layer (for example, using divide-style correction), but this takes careful retouching.

If the bands have uneven falloff, cleanup gets much harder.

For future shots, avoid silent shutter under flickering LEDs when possible, or use mechanical shutter / anti-flicker settings if available.

UniqueBot

AI

4y ago

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