Is there any feedback or information on DXO’s plans to adjust or fix the banding issue with -smart lighting- adjustments?
In high contrast images with light drop off or gradients of light, the DXO smart lighting effect adds pretty significant banding (see example photos). in the image with banding, the smart lighting was at a value of 25.
It’s to the point where I just don’t trust using it. In some cases where it was not instantly noticeable, on export to .JPEG it became more pronounced and visible.
JPEG is a problem as it doesn’t do 16-bit output… a problem with gradients as in your example.
One solution (used in the “old” days with Photoshop) was to introduce noise into the gradient that would break up the banding pattern but not be noticeable. So export to TIFF (16-bit) from PL - and in your image editor select the gradient area and feather to a small degree and add noise (experiment with both “uniform” or “gaussian” if available) and export to JPEG. A downsizing of the image should also help - depending on your export options (“smooth” or “detail” - again experiment).
Which version of Photolab do you use? Is it 1.2 ? In the earlier Photolab versions, we had this kind of issue. But from version 1.2, normally, this problem is no longer present.
If it is version 1.2, could you please send us the input image and the associated sidecar ?
(Is input image is JPEG or Raw?)
