Banding
Banding is a physiological effect that manifests itself in the fact that the human perception of brightness is much more pronounced than the perception of color differences. This difference is evident in color photography, which works according to the standard RGB color space( sRGB) and can display over 16 million color differences and 256 brightness differences.
If a low color resolution is used for the color display, then the color gradients are not displayed seamlessly, but have color gradations that are unpleasantly noticeable. This effect is called banding.
In color representation, the banding effect is causally related to the color depth. For example, if the three primary colors are each resolved with 4 bits per color, then 16 x 16 x 16, i.e. 4,096 color nuances can be displayed. Depending on the color range, the individual gradations may be visible at such a low color depth. This effect of graduated color gradients can occur with High Color with 16 bit color depth, Direct Color with 21 bit color depth and also with True Color with 24 bit color depth.
In Deep Color with the enormous color resolution of up to 48 bits, banding no longer occurs. Inimage processing, it can also be reduced or avoided by dithering.