FedericoAimar Posted January 31, 2021 Share Posted January 31, 2021 (edited) Hello everyone, my name is Federico and I have been a happy user of the Affinity suite for a few days. I'm experiencing a problem that I can't solve when I export my pictures...I've searched on google and here on the forum but I haven't found a solution. If I open my raw image (from Canon 6D mark1) in development and then work it as a file in 16 bit and adobe rgb color format everything is fine. The image is clear and has no defects. But if I then export it to jpg I find myself with annoying bands of color in the finest transitions. I have tried various export settings but the problem persists. The only current solution that works is to export the image to PNG which in itself I don't think is a bad thing but I go from an 8 megabyte jpg to an 80 megabyte PNG! Is anyone experiencing the same problem? Or am I using the wrong export method? (I was used to photoshop). I attach some images where I hope you can see the difference between jpg and pgn. Thanks a lot to everyone for the help and forgive my english! Edited January 31, 2021 by FedericoAimar Grammar error Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FedericoAimar Posted January 31, 2021 Author Share Posted January 31, 2021 1 minute ago, BofG said: What colour profile are you using on export to jpeg? Your English is better than most native speakers Thank you BofG! I tried to export both in adobe rgb 1998 and in srgb but I didn't notice any difference between the two images. I also tried not including the ICC profile and the bands were less visible but the image was obviously too desaturated and dull. To be honest I've tried a lot of setting but no difference where visibile. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FedericoAimar Posted January 31, 2021 Author Share Posted January 31, 2021 (edited) 39 minutes ago, BofG said: Part of the problem is the jpeg format is limited to 8bit, so you get less "steps" between colours, hence some banding. Technically sRGB should have less banding than the Adobe RGB, as it has less range to fit into that 8bit space. I'm not too sure what you can do if anything, presumably you are exporting to 100% quality in jpeg? Hopefully someone with more knowledge on these things will help. Thank you for your help! I hope someone can enlighten me! Edited January 31, 2021 by FedericoAimar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walt.farrell Posted January 31, 2021 Share Posted January 31, 2021 You might try converting your image to 8-bit within the application (Document > Convert Format, then choose RGB/8 for the format). Does that show the same banding? Quote -- Walt Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases PC: Desktop: Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Laptop: Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU. iPad: iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard Mac: 2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NotMyFault Posted January 31, 2021 Share Posted January 31, 2021 Color banding is mainly caused by insufficient color depth, e.g. 8 bit in JPEG. The best option would be to use an export format that supports >8bit, e.g. 16 bit TIFF or PNG, or HEIF (not yet available in Affinity Photo for export) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colour_banding https://affinity.help/photo/en-US.lproj/index.html?page=pages/Appendix/fileformat.html?title=Supported file formats Quote Mac mini M1 A2348 | Windows 10 - AMD Ryzen 9 5900x - 32 GB RAM - Nvidia GTX 1080 LG34WK950U-W, calibrated to DCI-P3 with LG Calibration Studio / Spider 5 iPad Air Gen 5 (2022) A2589 Special interest into procedural texture filter, edit alpha channel, RGB/16 and RGB/32 color formats, stacking, finding root causes for misbehaving files, finding creative solutions for unsolvable tasks, finding bugs in Apps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NotMyFault Posted January 31, 2021 Share Posted January 31, 2021 You may give the "Web Safe Dither" filter a try, i personally never used this. https://affinity.help/photo/en-US.lproj/index.html?page=pages/Filters/filter_webSafeDither.html?title=Web Safe Dither Quote Mac mini M1 A2348 | Windows 10 - AMD Ryzen 9 5900x - 32 GB RAM - Nvidia GTX 1080 LG34WK950U-W, calibrated to DCI-P3 with LG Calibration Studio / Spider 5 iPad Air Gen 5 (2022) A2589 Special interest into procedural texture filter, edit alpha channel, RGB/16 and RGB/32 color formats, stacking, finding root causes for misbehaving files, finding creative solutions for unsolvable tasks, finding bugs in Apps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FedericoAimar Posted January 31, 2021 Author Share Posted January 31, 2021 Thank you for your suggestion! I have tried all the proposed solutions but the problem persists! I would like to add that even trying on a colleague's photoshop, both exporting to jpg and saving to web, the color bands appear. I think that it is the characteristics of the image that cause the problem. As suggested, saving it in tiff instead the bands disappear and the image is perfect! Sharing it on the web keeps the bands coming back. I'll just keep it to myself hehe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
harrym Posted January 31, 2021 Share Posted January 31, 2021 Hi Frederico, welcome to the forum! Does this only happen with this image or all images? Looks like a fairly high dr situation. Would you be willing to upload the project file you have taken those screen shots of? The reason I'm asking is that I use canon too and export jpgs to print a lot, I've not had banding like that. Actually just for fun the original cr2 file would also be good so i could run it through my workflow and see what happens. Please excuse my Scottish! 😁 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FedericoAimar Posted January 31, 2021 Author Share Posted January 31, 2021 4 minutes ago, harrym said: Hi Frederico, welcome to the forum! Does this only happen with this image or all images? Looks like a fairly high dr situation. Would you be willing to upload the project file you have taken those screen shots of? The reason I'm asking is that I use canon too and export jpgs to print a lot, I've not had banding like that. Actually just for fun the original cr2 file would also be good so i could run it through my workflow and see what happens. Please excuse my Scottish! 😁 Hello Harrym and thank you! Absolutely, I'll upload the raw file here and the project so you can try it! I've noticed that the bands appear in other images too, but they are much less visible. The thing that leaves me doubtful is that I didn't notice them when I used photoshop, but I don't think there can be a big difference. Let me know! Ah accurate and I admit I use a MacBook Pro 13 but the screen has never been calibrated so it's like factory. _MG_9817.CR2 Alba.afphoto Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
harrym Posted January 31, 2021 Share Posted January 31, 2021 15 minutes ago, FedericoAimar said: Hello Harrym and thank you! Absolutely, I'll upload the raw file here and the project so you can try it! I've noticed that the bands appear in other images too, but they are much less visible. The thing that leaves me doubtful is that I didn't notice them when I used photoshop, but I don't think there can be a big difference. Let me know! Ah accurate and I admit I use a MacBook Pro 13 but the screen has never been calibrated so it's like factory. _MG_9817.CR2 19.39 MB · 0 downloads Alba.afphoto 133.19 MB · 0 downloads Cheers! I'll give it a go and get back to you Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
harrym Posted January 31, 2021 Share Posted January 31, 2021 Hi @FedericoAimar So I'm having exactly the same issues as you, the image is what I would call a bit of a doozy! Having processed the CR2 file several different ways I have no doubts it's a 16-8 bit issue which basically everyone on the thread worked out already but I do wonder if that 50f/1.8 is contributing to the problem as you can see faint radial 'shadows' on the CR2 The best I could I could come up with is to export as PNG in RGB-8-bit Pixel format (Export Persona) which gives you a 13MG file so not quite as bad as 80. No help if your print service only accepts jpgs though! (I didn't bother with adjustments as that's not the issue) Regards H Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NotMyFault Posted January 31, 2021 Share Posted January 31, 2021 As a canon user, i used Canon DPP to develop your RAW file into TIF and JPEG. Then, i compared this with a JPEG export of affinity photo. I tried to use the same settings in both apps: Disabled any lens correction Disabled Vignette correction Used default settings for all sliders kept the "Natural" profile of the photo in DPP To my surprise, the jeg result differs strongly between DPP and AP: The DPP jpeg does not show any banding The AP jpeg whows strong banding This might be caused by the contrast / sharpening settings you have chosen in-camera (see below). Please have a look by yourself - i've added the files as seperate layers into one AP file. My conclusion would be that AP produced JPEGs that are inferior to Canon DPP. In my 6 year usage of DPP, DPP always produced results which are extremely close to JPEGs produced in camera. As my Canon cameras are able to create CR2 and JPG in parallel, i can always compare in-camera JPG with those processed from CR2 by DPP. These match perfectly. In contrast, i never got a matching JPG in Affinity Photo, whatever i tried. Exposure, white balance, contrast are way off from in-camera JPG and DPP result. And i experimented a lot with "Develop Assistant" settings. Current settings are: It would be good if Affinity staff could provide guidance what settings should be used to get JPGs as similar as in-camera (or by DPP). I would expect some differences in principle: AP always ignores the "picture style" information which contains the essential data for the RAW develepment: - lens corrections to be applied (or not) - all basic settings like exposure, contrast: -4 in your picture , sharpening: +3 in your picture, saturation - noise reduction - black and white style Color profile: Adobe RGB in your case _MG_9817.afphoto Quote Mac mini M1 A2348 | Windows 10 - AMD Ryzen 9 5900x - 32 GB RAM - Nvidia GTX 1080 LG34WK950U-W, calibrated to DCI-P3 with LG Calibration Studio / Spider 5 iPad Air Gen 5 (2022) A2589 Special interest into procedural texture filter, edit alpha channel, RGB/16 and RGB/32 color formats, stacking, finding root causes for misbehaving files, finding creative solutions for unsolvable tasks, finding bugs in Apps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NotMyFault Posted January 31, 2021 Share Posted January 31, 2021 13 minutes ago, BofG said: Random thought, when you process the raw image initially, can you choose a non-linear profile? 8bit images benefit from a curved tone reproduction curve as it packs more steps into the data at the dark end of the image. Just wondering if starting out with a "gamma" type profile might help when it's later packed into 8bit. I don't have Photo myself to experiment with. Canon offers a "highlight priority" profile, but this serves a different purpose to protect the highligths (not the shadows) by tweaking the gamma curve. Quote Mac mini M1 A2348 | Windows 10 - AMD Ryzen 9 5900x - 32 GB RAM - Nvidia GTX 1080 LG34WK950U-W, calibrated to DCI-P3 with LG Calibration Studio / Spider 5 iPad Air Gen 5 (2022) A2589 Special interest into procedural texture filter, edit alpha channel, RGB/16 and RGB/32 color formats, stacking, finding root causes for misbehaving files, finding creative solutions for unsolvable tasks, finding bugs in Apps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NotMyFault Posted January 31, 2021 Share Posted January 31, 2021 Hi Federico, could you do me (us) a favor: Some Canon cameras are able to develop a CR2 to JPEG in camera (e.g. my 80D). If this function is available on your 6D, could you please do so and provide us the resulting JPEG? This will be the ultimate benchmark. Quote Mac mini M1 A2348 | Windows 10 - AMD Ryzen 9 5900x - 32 GB RAM - Nvidia GTX 1080 LG34WK950U-W, calibrated to DCI-P3 with LG Calibration Studio / Spider 5 iPad Air Gen 5 (2022) A2589 Special interest into procedural texture filter, edit alpha channel, RGB/16 and RGB/32 color formats, stacking, finding root causes for misbehaving files, finding creative solutions for unsolvable tasks, finding bugs in Apps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FedericoAimar Posted January 31, 2021 Author Share Posted January 31, 2021 (edited) 32 minutes ago, NotMyFault said: Hi Federico, could you do me (us) a favor: Some Canon cameras are able to develop a CR2 to JPEG in camera (e.g. my 80D). If this function is available on your 6D, could you please do so and provide us the resulting JPEG? This will be the ultimate benchmark. Thank you all for contributing to the conversation. I took the advice of and tried developing the photo directly from the camera. I did not apply any kind of correction. The image is less contrasty and the bands seem less visible to me especially in the clouds. Near the sun I seem to perceive some but I don't want it to be induced...I've been thinking about it all day! EDIT: after uploading to the forum the bands are much more visible! I added a wetransfer link with the original file https://we.tl/t-BVyEHVwcNh Edited January 31, 2021 by FedericoAimar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FedericoAimar Posted February 1, 2021 Author Share Posted February 1, 2021 I'd say we've solved the mystery. Thank you all for the contribution, you are really a fantastic community! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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