Why has it done this?

P

photoroo

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Name
Rupert
Edit My Images
Yes
Hi all,

This is a photo I took a few months back, It is prior to me getting ND grads and with even less knowledge then I have now. It has been PP'ed and I'm not expecting and award winning comments but why has the photo come out with 3 definite bands of colour around the sun set? The PP only involved to moving levels around, no effects used.


red sky at night by Roowhite, on Flickr
 
Just thought, should this be in the Talk Basics section?
 
It's called 'posterisation'. Basically what's happened is that you've overexposed the sun and the area around it to the point where there's no or little data in that area. If not rendered as pure white (all channels blown) it can result in banding and funky colours (where probably the red channel has blown first for a sunset). Unfortunately it's quite common and you need to be careful with the exposure around the sun. Obviously the ND grad will help to a point, but you're normally going to have blown highlights shooting into the sun.

One thing I try in this type of situation is to actually increase exposure in post processing to push the banded areas closer to white, relying on the data in the further out areas for more pleasing gradations. You don't get the circle of the sun but it can be evocative of the glariness of looking at the sun. This can work well in some images but not so well in others.
 
Thanks for the reply Duncan. I'll add that to my knowledge base. slowly expanding :)
 
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