I am working on a photo that I have had to make some major adjustments too. I am getting a result in the sky that is similar to heavy JPEG compression. It is in black and white, and is instead of a smooth black to light grey transitions, there is some serious banding. Does anyone know a good way to fix this in PS?
What are the grayscale values for the lightest and darkest areas, and how many pixels does the area span? And then what are the tonal values for the rest of the photo?
It sounds like you need to increase the tonal range in the sky, while not distorting the other parts too much.
You might also try making the conversion to B+W using Channel Mixer with the monochrome option set -- I haven't played with it much but many people say it gives you a lot more control over how the B+W will look.
But banding is usually caused by having too few shades covering a span of too many pixels. If this is not for a challenge entry, I'd suggest creating a mask for the sky and increasing the tone range there separately.
I actually figured out (somewhat) how to use the gradiant tool in PS. This is helping with the effect. I will post a version for critique and riticule later in the week. It is still a work-in-progress.
And yes, I need to get the wife and kids out and shoot.
If what you want to do is to reduce the noise, then why not try running the picture through PhotoClean. I've been using it more and more recently with amazing results. Beast and easitest way of eliminating noise that I've come across.
Sorry, I recommended the wrong appilcation. I meant to say NeatImage. Although PhotoClean works well for getting the most color out of your photos, NeatImage is the best at reducing noise.
