Color Banding

I have a lot of issues with color banding when rendering time lapse. I have tried a lot of solutions that don't work.

Any recommendations? I edit on after effects and shoot with 5d M2 when doing TL.

Hope there is a good plugin or something.

Skys are a perennial problem for this. Especially when you try and boost saturation. If you are exporting from quicktime you must make sure you use Pro-re HQ or the very best codec you have at your disposal. I put every still through a batch process in photoshop first and this normally eliminates the problem using filtration, but sometimes the banding is just there.

LCD monitors, and consquently LCD tvs are also a problem. I use a CRT monitor (still) in the studio and there's never any banding on that.

Photoshop sometimes can eliminate the problem by using gaussian blur followed by fade gaussian blur using colour.

Hope that'sof use

Jules

Great help thanks much. Looks like I have some experimenting to do.

To get the best possible quality from a timelapse you should shoot RAW sequences and import it in After Effects. It will open some sort of Camera RAW that lets you change anything you want. In case of banding I apply the Noise filter with a value of 0.4 to 1.5 pixels. This will remove the banding.

I tried that, but it wanted me to change each photo individually. Is there a way to apply the same alteration or ramped alterations to batch process?

In AfterEffects CS4 I can open a RAW "Sequence" via it's own CameraRAW and the settings will be changed for all pics in this sequence. Maybe you have to checkmark sequence. Don't know if ramped settings are possible via CameraRAW.

That sounds right. Thanks very much for that tip. Now, I just need the massive memory card. On my 5d2 in RAW small I get a little over 999 images on a high quality 16gig card. That is a lot of images for one TL, but not much for doing a few in one trip. :-(

I would like to experiment more with the raw though, especially with the night time stuff. Great information from all of you and thanks very much.

How are you setting up the camera? Settings? etc.. Make sure all settings are set and locked in manual mode.

Yeah I shoot in all manual mode. The only time I have a problem is when large areas of the image are similarly colored, or gradually changing. Then I have to have epic battles with the banding.