Banding occurring with blue sky AP2

[DeepDesertPhoto]

I am using a MacBook Pro 16inch 2021 running Ventura.

I used to have the output color profile for AP1 set to Wide Gamut RGB Linear and Wide Gamut RGB Calibrated for 32 Bit HDR.

When I applied those same settings to AP2 I noticed that some colors did not seem quite right and I was getting highlight blowouts when exporting to JPG with sRGB embedded profile.

I switched to ProPhoto RGB Linear for 32 bit HDR and that eliminated the highlight blowouts, but now I am getting a faint banding effect in blue skies when I export to JPG sRGB.

I do not see this banding while developing the camera raw file or when I export to a 16 bit LAB Tiff file. It only occurs when exporting to JPG sRGB.

I have tried various methods of smoothing this banding out but nothing has worked, and since I did not encounter this problem in AP1 I am suspecting another bug in the software related to how it compresses JPGs.

I have noticed that the file sizes for my JPG exports in AP2 are smaller than AP1 by as much as 10 megabytes even though I have the JPG compression set to 100%.

Could this be a problem with the way AP2 is creating JPGs from the camera raw images?

I have attached an image to illustrate the banding in the blue sky.

[NotMyFault]

If you export from a file with wide gamut color profiles to jpeg with sRGB, banding in blue sky is to be expected in may cases, as there are too few numbers of colors in the blue channel with only 8 bits. If you need a jpeg (instead of png or tiff wich supports 16 bit color channels), try to apply some noise or dithering /diffuse filter to the sky (this is what Affinity does for gradients to mitigate).

 

[DeepDesertPhoto]

6 hours ago, NotMyFault said:

If you export from a file with wide gamut color profiles to jpeg with sRGB, banding in blue sky is to be expected in may cases, as there are too few numbers of colors in the blue channel with only 8 bits. If you need a jpeg (instead of png or tiff wich supports 16 bit color channels), try to apply some noise or dithering /diffuse filter to the sky (this is what Affinity does for gradients to mitigate).

 

I tried your suggestion but it had no effect.

I have been using AP since 2017. However, in the past I was using it on a 2012 MacBook Pro running High Sierra.

AP2 was not compatible with High Sierra, but when my older Mac developed a drive problem I went ahead and upgraded to a 2021 MacBook Pro 16 inch running Ventura. This was when I decided to try out AP2.

When your suggestion had no effect I decided to take a look at some of my older photos that had been processed with AP1 on the older Mac. I immediately saw the same banding in blue skies that was not visible on my older Mac.

I checked the specs of my newer Mac and it uses something called a Liquid Retina XDR (Extreme Dynamic Range) display. This is a higher resolution screen when compared to my older Mac and I am wondering if it could be causing the problem by revealing banding that was simply not visible on the older screens.

Could this be a possibility, and if so is there a way to fix it?

[NotMyFault]

If you could upload an example image, created in v1, and the export settings you used to create the jpeg, we can see if there is a difference when exporting in v1 and v2. Different displays can have a huge impact on what details you can spot.

I use Photo since about 2017 on Windows first, then iPad, now Mac, with many different displays. Banding was detectable on all devices and displays, i didn’t find any differences yet between v1 and v2.

[DeepDesertPhoto]

11 minutes ago, NotMyFault said:

If you could upload an example image, created in v1, and the export settings you used to create the jpeg, we can see if there is a difference when exporting in v1 and v2. Different displays can have a huge impact on what details you can spot.

I use Photo since about 2017 on Windows first, then iPad, now Mac, with many different displays. Banding was detectable on all devices and displays, i didn’t find any differences yet between v1 and v2.

Unfortunately all of the development settings I used in AP1 got erased when I used Time Machine to migrate it to my new Mac, and I cannot remember all of the settings I used for the Development Persona. However, I can tell you that when I exported to JPEG I used Lanczos (Separable) compression to preserve the original details with sRGB embedded in the JPEG profile so that it would be compatible with the websites I display them on. I used this JPEG export setting for both AP1 and AP2.

I have been thinking of removing AP1 since I am now using AP2 with new custom settings. The only reason I haven't done it yet is because I was not sure it AP2 would be impacted.

However, while I was waiting for a response to my last reply to your first suggestion, I watched a couple of video tutorials on the new Apple Liquid Retina XDR display, and it appears that this new display does have an effect on how color dependent images are displayed. According to the tutorial the default setting can cause problems with white balance and contrasts. The tutorial said that if you are working on color intensive workflows, such as camera raw photos or illustrations, it is best to turn off the "True Tone" feature of the display. That feature actually adjusts the white balance based on the ambient light in the room. That can be a problem when trying to determine the true white balance of photos. The tutorial also showed what display presets might be useful for certain workflows. For example, while I am working on photo editing with AP2 I set the display for a preset labeled "Photography (P3-D65)". I also customized this preset by going into its settings and activated the HDR processing.

It did seem to have an effect on the way the images displayed. The banding is still present, but with the P3-D65 display setting it is reduced to more acceptable levels, and is only visible in certain darker shades of blue instead of all blue color like before.

There is one drawback to this setting, however. It locks the display so that you cannot change the brightness of the screen. So when I am done editing my photos I have to go back into the presets menu and reset it back to the default so that I can turn down the brightness when just surfing the web or checking email.

[DeepDesertPhoto]

On another note, I viewed the photo I first uploaded at the beginning of this thread in the two different Apple display settings and I can see a difference between the factory default and the P3-D65 photography setting. The banding does appear to be reduced in intensity when viewed with the P3-D65 setting.