Color Banding on Your Monitor: Causes and Fixes

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Color banding is when a smooth change of color, like a sunset sky or a dark shadow, shows up as visible stripes instead of a gentle blend. It is very common, and often it is not the monitor’s fault. Here is how to test for it and what to try.

Test for banding

Open our screen tester and run Gradients. You get a smooth gray ramp, red, green and blue ramps, and a 32-step scale above a smooth ramp.

  • On the smooth ramps, a few soft steps are normal on 8-bit screens. Sharp, wide stripes are banding.
  • Colored tints in the gray ramp, such as a pink or green band, point to calibration or color profile issues.
  • In Advanced, switch gradient steps to 64, 32 or 16 to see what stepped ramps look like for comparison.

Why banding happens

Most monitors show 8 bits per color channel: 256 shades from black to full red, green or blue. Over a wide screen, each shade becomes a stripe several pixels wide. Good panels and dithering hide these steps. Several things can make them visible:

  • Low color depth set in your graphics settings, such as 6-bit or a reduced color format.
  • Limited range or YCbCr output over HDMI, which can compress shades.
  • Software calibration or color profiles that squeeze the range, especially aggressive ones.
  • Picture modes that boost contrast or saturation.
  • Compressed content. Streaming video and heavily compressed images often contain banding before they reach your screen.
  • Cheap panels that use 6-bit plus dithering (FRC).

Fixes to try

  1. Use full RGB output. In NVIDIA Control Panel, set Output color format to RGB and Output dynamic range to Full. On AMD, set Pixel Format to RGB 4:4:4 Full. On Intel, set Quantization range to Full.
  2. Raise color depth to 8 or 10 bits per channel where available.
  3. Use DisplayPort or a certified HDMI cable for high resolutions and refresh rates, which can otherwise force lower color depth.
  4. Reset the monitor’s picture mode to Standard or sRGB, and turn off dynamic contrast and “black equalizer” features.
  5. Remove or redo calibration. Reset your color profile to the default, then calibrate with a hardware colorimeter if you need accuracy.
  6. Check the source. If banding appears only in one video or game, the content itself is likely the cause.

8-bit vs 10-bit

A true 10-bit panel shows 1,024 shades per channel and can make gradients smoother, but only with 10-bit content, a 10-bit-capable app and the right settings. For everyday use, a good 8-bit panel with dithering looks smooth. Do not expect a 10-bit setting to fix banding that comes from compressed video.

When to worry

If smooth ramps show harsh stripes after you have fixed the settings above, or a color tint shows in the gray ramp that calibration cannot remove, the panel may be poor quality. Check it within your return window using the new monitor checklist.