a tool for reducing noise banding
Tips
1. Moderation
StripeStripper will probably have side-effects on your image.
The Shadow Tool tends to create posterization where shadows meets midtones. If you attack only one color channel, this can create color casts in the midtones of the image.
Use StripeStripper only as much as you need to. Remember, your goal is not to achieve a noise-free image, but to achieve an image suitable for processing by a noise reduction tool like Noise Ninja, Noiseware, or Neat Image.
So use the Shadow Tool as little as possible
2. Bands in shadows
When noise bands are confined to the shadows, the Shadow Tool is usually the best choice.
3. Place line endpoints away from bands
The Line Tool looks at the color at each endpoint of the line, and assumes that the color should vary linearly between those two points. Deviations from this linear change are considered signs of noise. Therefore, it is important to place the endpoints of the line in more normal, less-noisy areas. If you place the end point of a line inside a band, StripeStripper will think that the band under the endpoint is a normal color.
4. You can draw lines in midtones and highlights
Though the bands may only be visible in shadows, they usually extend into the midtones or highlights. If you draw a line through the midtones, it will probably cancel the corresponding band in the shadows.
Avoid drawing lines through clipped highlights. Clipped highlights have no noise band information.
5. Changing line color to "Luminance"
The Line Tool allows you to draw lines for Red, Green and Blue color channels. However, once a line is drawn, you can change the color channel to which it applies using the color channel dropdown list.
This dropdown list contains a fourth option: Luminance. When you select Luminance, StripeStripper tries to equalize the overall brightness levels along the path of the line. In rare cases, this can fix luminance bands across an image.
6. Beware of "overcompensation" bands
The Line Tool can introduce new bands. If you draw a line across a color variation that is not a band, StripeStripper will think the real variation is a color band and try to compensate. To remove the overcompensation, you can either delete the line, or draw another line across the overcompensation band.
However, there are some bands that the Line Tool cannot fix. The Line Tool has a characteristic scale. Narrow bands that are on this scale cannot be fixed by drawing more lines. In fact, drawing more lines will only exacerbate the problem. These bands usually result from overcompensation, so the only way to fix them is to delete some or all of your lines, and find new line paths across your image.
7. Performance
StripeStripper is not optimized for performance. The larger the image, the longer it takes to apply the Shadow and Line processing.
When you are previewing changes, StripeStripper acts on a small copy of the image which is the size of the StripeStripper application window. You can speed up the preview by reducing the size of the StripeStripper window.
When you save your results, StripeStripper has to reapply the changes to the full image, and this can take as long as a couple of minutes.
User Guide
StripeStripper is donationware. It is free to download and use for any legal purpose.
If it saves your photograph, or extends your usable ISO, please consider making a donation.
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Copyright 2008 Ivan Phillips.
StripeStripper is a trademark of Ivan Phillips.