How can I smooth banding in a partially overexposed sky when editing a RAW file?
Asked 6/24/2019
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2 answers
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I’m editing a backlit portrait where most of the sky is overexposed, though some detail remains in one corner of the frame. The JPEG shows a smoother transition, but when I try to recover or reshape the highlights from the Canon CR2 RAW file, I get visible banding instead of a smooth blue-to-white gradient.
I’ve been adjusting the upper part of the tonal curve in Darktable, but I can’t match the smoother look of the out-of-camera JPEG. Is there a good way to smooth the sky transition, or is this simply lost because the sky is already clipped?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
7y ago
2 Answers
2
Try adding some noise to the sky. This will ease the transitions between the bands of color. Here's a good reference for doing so: https://www.dpmag.com/how-to/tip-of-the-week/identifying-repairing-banding/
Originally by user86498. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user86498
6y ago
0
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If the sky is clipped in the RAW, there often isn’t enough tonal information left to create a truly smooth gradient by curve adjustments alone. Pushing those tones can make banding more obvious.
Two practical fixes:
- add a little noise/grain to the sky. This can help break up visible bands and make transitions look smoother.
- retouch the sky manually with a soft brush or local adjustment, painting in a matching tone at low opacity to create an even gradient.
In other words, if highlight detail is already gone, you usually can’t fully “recover” it from RAW—you’re replacing or disguising the missing transition rather than restoring real data. The JPEG may look smoother because the camera’s processing applied its own tone mapping and noise/dithering.
So yes: this is largely a clipping problem, and the cleanest result will usually come from subtle retouching, optionally combined with a small amount of added noise to hide banding.
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