Color banding on files

[Bill8125]

In the last month I've started getting color banding on my .nef files.  I shoot with Nikon - mostly a D500 with XQD card.  However, I have got this problem with a D7200 using an SD card so it may not be the camera hardware.

About 5% of the images have banding.

Sometimes the banding does not appear right away.  Sometimes when I go from Library to Develop, the banding shows up.  Sometimes going from one view mode to another causes the banding to come or go. 

I suspect the issue is either LR or my hard drive.  I use an external 8TB western digital.  I'm running an experiment with a catalog on my mac's SSD.  Also, uninstalled LR and reinstalled.

Anyone seen this before?

[JP Hess · Accepted solution]

This is reported occasionally. It is most often associated with hardware problem. It could be a failing hard drive or some other problem with the hardware. Lightroom does not write anything to the raw files so it seems that it would have to be something related to your computer system that is causing this problem.

[Just Shoot Me]

As stated above it is file corruption cause by some type of hardware problem.

[cmgap]

Have you looked at these images in your finder window or Ps? If you see the banding in any other software you can rule out Lr.

[dj_paige]

Have you looked at these images in your finder window or Ps? If you see the banding in any other software you can rule out Lr.

Often Finder or other software shows the embedded JPG preview, which often does not have the file corruption. So this really doesn't help unless you can force the software to show you the actual RAW image.

[Bill8125]

Yes, I see the banding in Photoshop as well as Nikon Capture NX.  Oddly, the ones that show banding in the Nikon software are different than the ones showing banding in LR.  I've imported the files showing banding to an external HD as well as to my Macbook SSD and get banding on each HD.

Up to this point, I have tried different cameras, different media cards, different hard drives, and different viewing software.  Not sure what else I can look at other than my Macbook Pro OS.

[dj_paige]

You have to also look at the camera card, the transfer hardware and also computer memory. Try to transfer the photos to the computer using different hardware. Run diagnostics on the computer memory.

[Bill8125]

I ran the apple diagnostics - both short and long.  No trouble found on each.  I'll experiment today with different cameras and memory cards.  Oddly, the problem is "dynamic."  In LR, sometimes the banding shows in grid mode but not loupe.  Sometimes when moving to the next image, the banding shows and then goes away after 1-2 seconds.  Very perplexing.

[dj_paige]

Bill8125  wrote

I ran the apple diagnostics - both short and long.  No trouble found on each.  I'll experiment today with different cameras and memory cards.  Oddly, the problem is "dynamic."  In LR, sometimes the banding shows in grid mode but not loupe.  Sometimes when moving to the next image, the banding shows and then goes away after 1-2 seconds.  Very perplexing.

And you have to suspect the transfer hardware -- bad card reader, bad USB cable/USB port, you can't ignore that. Apple diagnostics won't check that.

[cmgap]

Up to this point, I have tried different cameras, different media cards, different hard drives, and different viewing software.  Not sure what else I can look at other than my Macbook Pro OS.

Do you have access to another computer with Ps/Lr on it?

[Bill8125]

I'll try that next time I go shooting and get a few hundred images to test out.  Thanks.

[dj_paige]

Bill8125  wrote

I'll try that next time I go shooting and get a few hundred images to test out.  Thanks.

I wouldn't wait until you have a few hundred images to try to eliminate this problem. You can take photos of that ketchup bottle in your refrigerator and if those get corrupted, no big deal, but you can use those ketchup photos to diagnose the problem.

It seems to me you still haven't checked the transfer hardware, as that very smart dj_paige suggested earlier (twice).

[Bill8125]

I think the suggestions about hardware are probably correct.  I loaded Nikon Capture NX-D on my wife's macbook pro and looked at the files on the XQD card that showed banding when viewed on my macbook pro.  On her macbook, there was NO banding.  So the issue may be with a video card or similar hardware component.

At least I feel relieved to have apparently isolated the problem.  Thanks for all of the suggestions.

[cmgap]

Good - you've eliminated the camera, cables and software. If you are on CC photography bundle you can load Ps/Lr on your wifes MBP. You can also take your computer to the Apple store and have them hook it up to a diagnostic machine. You're likely to find that the video card will fail the test.

[dj_paige]

Bill8125  wrote

I think the suggestions about hardware are probably correct.  I loaded Nikon Capture NX-D on my wife's macbook pro and looked at the files on the XQD card that showed banding when viewed on my macbook pro.  On her macbook, there was NO banding.  So the issue may be with a video card or similar hardware component.

At least I feel relieved to have apparently isolated the problem.  Thanks for all of the suggestions.

I am not aware that a video card can be the cause of this particular image corruption. The known culprits are:

• bad hard disk
• bad computer memory
• bad camera card
• bad transfer hardware

For some reason, in this entire thread, you have ignored "bad transfer hardware". I don't know why you are ignoring this, but you shouldn't ignore it. Caveat emptor.

[cmgap]

The images are okay on OP's wife's MacBook. If it was the transfer hardware the banding would have showed up there as well.

[TheDigitalDog]

It's your hardware. But do try turning off GPU settings in Lightroom first just to see if that helps. But it's probably a video card issue. By all means, see if another product that can render the raws show the same issues.

[Bill8125]

I just got off the phone with a helpful Apple person.  He suggested I look at the images showing the banding problem using the Apple Photos application.  There were NO banding issues using Apple Photos.  He was reluctant to blame it on my mac's hardware since the Apple photo app seemed to work fine.  He said he could have his apple engineers look at the problem but only AFTER Adobe had done all it could to troubleshoot.

One long shot - about the time the problem started for the second time (about 30 days ago), I downloaded Adobe Dreamweaver CC.  Not sure if Dreamweaver could have corrupted LR although I uninstalled LR and reinstalled.

To reiterate, I have imported the photos to different hard drives and got the same banding.  Likewise with memory cards (used two different ones), and card readers.  I ran the apple diagnostics which checks memory and it came back with "No errors noted."

[JP Hess]

I don't know anything about Apple Photos. But it's possible that it only shows the JPEG preview, which is the same thing that the camera shows on the LCD screen.

[cmgap]

Can you share a couple of your files with banding in a dropbox folder? If the images show banding on another computer in Lightroom we may be able to continue the discussion about what might be causing the problem. If the images do not have the banding issue on another computer in Lr we can conclude that it is your computer that has the issue.

[dj_paige]

cmgap  wrote

The images are okay on OP's wife's MacBook. If it was the transfer hardware the banding would have showed up there as well.

Not if different transfer hardware was used to get the photos from the camera card to the wife's MacBook

[Bill8125]

Here is a link to files with banding on jumpshare:  http://jmp.sh/PFoOMjk

Others have looked at these files and found no issues.  I turned off the GPU in LR and reimported the files onto my mac's SSD and it showed no banding.  I then turned GPU back on and reimported - it also showed no banding.  Clearly this issue is intermittent.

I looked at the raw files in Nikon Capture NX-D and they still show banding.  I really don't care about Nikon Capture as I use LR exclusively.  I just tried that software to see if the banding showed up there as well.  It's ironic - one would think that Nikon's own software would handle its raw files better than another software provider like Adobe.

I installed Dreamweaver CC on my mac about the same time the banding issues showed up.  I have a hard time making any kind of connection between Dreamweaver and Lightroom but I suppose it is possible.

[cmgap]

It's highly unlikely that DW has anything to do with what's happening in Lr. If you have a number of applications all pulling from the computers processor and you have limited RAM and limited disk space - these things all combined could cause performance problems. What are your system specs

- OS

- RAM

- Drive size

It is your computer that is causing the problem with banding.

[Miro Perez]

For what it's worth, I ran into this years ago on a Windows computer and as I recall it ended up being a bad card reader. I think I tried a direct USB connection to my camera with a different usb cable and it worked that way. It was definitely intermittent for me too. I could copy the same file that had banding and the next time it would work.

[Brad_Polt-Jones]

All the files open with no banding on my computer. It is definitely a hardware problem on your machine. My guess is it's the video card as I've seen similar issues with other cards in the past.

The good news is, the files you've downloaded are most likely fine •.

I would recommend copying the Lightroom catalog from your SSD to the external 8 TB hard drive. Install Lightroom on your wife's computer, connect the external drive to your wife's computer, launch the Lightroom catalog and the banding should disappear.