Digital Light & Color

I have an image (6048 x 4032) that has a fairly large expanse of (what I thought was) featureless sky.

I ran it through the Watercolour transformation with default slider positions, however, because I did not like the result at the default 2000 px, I changed that to 6048.

The final image was quite acceptable in the areas with texture (rocks etc) but at 1:1 especially, there is obvious banding across the sky and other featureless areas. And the banding becomes more obvious the closer one zooms in. These areas in the original image show no signs of banding at 1:1, or even beyond.

The image will potentially be printed at up to about 30 x 40 inches (by someone else, I don't currently have a printer so can't test-print), and I am fearful that the banding may be visible. To that end, I am in the processing of using the sky in the original and cloning it into the WC image. The problem with this is there are a number of objects (boat, reeds etc) that are included, or intrude, in the sky area and I wish to keep the WC effect on these. This has turned out to be very tedious to clone in/around these objects.

So, my question - Can one or some of the sliders be moved to help eliminate/reduce the banding in the sky while retaining the WC effect in the other areas. I expect what happens in the sky will also happen in the rest of the image?? but would be happy if the banding was not so severe. As there are a few sliders in this dialogue, it is difficult to understand which ones cause what result.

Thanks,

Marv

Banding is an unavoidable side effect of watercolor. You can reduce the amount of median filtering, but this will also cut back on the watercolor effect. I might try creating a mask instead of hand cloning. You can base the mask on a color range, texture, brightness curve or use flood fill.

Thanks Jonathan,

I sort of figured that the banding was part of the WC result. Just thought I would ask anyway.

Tried all the masking tools and found them needing as much work in the cleanup as the cloning itself. So many different tones/hues that make masking difficult to get all the areas. I'll just carry on with the cloning.

Marv