Help removing scanner banding

[EwanG]

One of the upcoming chapters I'm working on for my fanimations has some scans of an evening sky with the moon. I can't find any scans where you don't see "banding" (areas of light and dark) which I've noticed before when scanning items with a dark background. Any help on how to manipulate the images to remove or reduce this would be greatly appreciated.

TIA!

[MattBlackLamb]

If you give us an image to work with then we'll see what we can do, it's a lot easeir working from an image rather than just guessing what needs to be done.

[EwanG]

File example attached below (hopefully)...

[Ash]

Will this work? You will have to do the rest of the adjustments/touch ups (if any) on your own.

[-Expiration-]

My go at it.

[barkbark00]

Open image in PdN. Create a new layer and set that layers' blending mode to 'Overlay'. Fill the new layer with a horizontal black to white gradient.

Open curves(+) and pull the side numbs to the positions as pictured:

Then use additional nubs to compensate for the scanner color distortion. You should end up with something close to the following curve:

(This will be slightly different depending on your original gradient's start and stop points)

Finished product:

Mine could use a little more fine tuning, but you get the idea...

NOTE:

This only works when banding is exactly vertical...

[EwanG]

Appreciate all the suggestions, but I have about 10 of these, and while these are noticeably improved, it is not enough of a distance to justify a lot of time for each of them. I did try playing with the curves suggestion, as well as trying some options using XOR and Negative, but nothing gives you much without killing a lot of detail. Oh well, it was worth a try

Thanks again for the suggestions, even if I don`t use them for this image, I`m sure I`ll use them on other images.

[Simon Brown]

Presuming you still have the images to scan, an alternative solution would be to look online for information on how to reduce that effect while scanning.

[EwanG]

Never being one to just give up (though often being one to do things in unusual ways), I had some time today to work on this, and using the techniques discussed here did the following:

1) Did a create new the same size as the original image.

2) Did a dark gray to light gray gradient (using the color picker from the original image).

3) Using the lasso tool, I took the detail elements I wanted from the original image, and then did a "paste to new layer" on the new image.

4) For each layer I used the blur unfocus, which blurred the item to make it fit better but didn't blur the background (separate layer).

5) Arranged the layers so the details were where I wanted them.

6) Did a merge down of all the layers, and then did one more light blur unfocus.

End result is the attached image. I think it actually looks reasonably good, except that it would be better if the gradient could be "textured" to look like it was on rough paper rather than as smooth as it is. Any ideas on how to add that last touch?

Thanks again for all the help!

[Ash]

Add noise

[EwanG]

Add noise

You know, I tried that, and couldn't find a setting that had the texture I was looking for. Any particular settings you can recommend?

[Ash]

Depends on what you have in mind.

Find a sample image and post it.