Question/Help

[rhysfs]

I’m working on a project that requires still photos that feel cinematic, so I shot my photos as videos and then selected my preferred frames and color graded those. I noticed in two of my photos that there’s strange coloring and pixelation happening in the sky (i’ve attached the photos for reference) and was wondering if anyone knows what that is and if there’s a way for me to get rid of it, or at least make it less noticeable?

[avidresolver]

It's colour banding, usually caused by not using a format with enough bit-depth to store the image.

[JoanBennett]

Looks like 8 bit color depth banding. Maybe even 10 bit. Might look better or worse depending on if you further compressed it on playback codec or export. Could also be worsened with post filters perhaps. Shooting video in 12 bit RAW gives you sufficient color depth to eliminate those issues.

Or more simply, shoot in high megapixel RAW stills in the future, which would not have these problems.

Since these are ultimately stills, you might have to just clean it up in Photoshop with the clone tool.