Damien Symonds

Yeah, it's banding. Ok, this is what I need you to do. Open the SOOR in Photoshop, then go to Edit>Assign Profile. Assign your monitor profile to the image instead of sRGB, and tell me if the banding gets better, or worse, or stays about the same, or stays EXACTLY the same.

May I see a screenshot showing your layers panel?

Is it just the bottom of the dress that needs more colour? From the tummy down?

What screen is it?

I'm going to move this into the Mac section. Hopefully Brian will know how to make something autorun on a Mac.

Oh no, no wonder it's so darn big! PLEASE start using real software. In the meantime, re-export it at 60 quality.

Yes, that all looks right. What did you choose on the 0-100 scale for the quality of the save?

Terrific! So all you need to do is open the photo in Photoshop, choose your crop tool, and enter the values they've given you: When you crop it, it will enlarge a LOT on your screen. That's a good thing. Then when saving the jpeg, choose 7 on the 0-12 quality scale. That will give ample quality, but keep the file manageably small. (Oh, and make sure you choose "Baseline Standard" in that window also).

I know, but if 282*262 is the size of the wall, is that the size of the file they need? Or do they need a few cm extra for bleed or trimming?

Is this what you set up? http://www.damiensymonds.net/act_web.html

Is this the one you watched? http://www.damiensymonds.net/client-photoshop

Why do you feel the need to step backwards? I'd leave the initial sharpening, do the resize to 2048, then if more sharpening is needed for web, apply it.

Do you know if they need bleed? Or is this the exact size of the file they need?

It is almost impossible for banding to exist in a SOOR, unless you BADLY under- or over-exposed the image, which you didn't do here. So this indicates a problem with your screen. Is it an iMac?

Phew! And do you see banding in the SOOR?

Oh, sorry, you need to turn on all three checkboxes at the bottom of the window.

Alas, I don't think it's possible in Elements, sorry.

Do you shoot raw?

Great!!!

Using the Image Size function in the Image menu.

What did you discover?

Oh! Well, have you re-opened some older photos to see if there is banding in them too, now? No, because you see banding in my PSD as well, remember?

Two years, but you've only started noticing this problem suddenly?

How new/old is your computer? Second question, do you have another computer (even a laptop would do) that you can temporarily plug the screen into, to see if it bands then too? We need to pinpoint where the problem is coming from.

Yes, of course. She's right, there's no banding.