Color banding test
Smooth gradients should look like one continuous ramp. If you see stripes, steps or colour tints inside a grey ramp, the panel or the processing in front of it is losing shades.
Click any ramp to open it full-screen. Look closest at the dark end of each ramp: that's where banding shows first.
Bit depth: why ramps break into steps
Each colour channel is stored as a whole number. 8 bits give 256 levels per channel; 6 bits give 64; 10 bits give 1,024. Fewer levels means wider steps across the same distance. Drag the slider and watch the gradient lose shades.
Top: quantised. Bottom: your display's own smooth ramp.
If the bottom ramp shows clear steps too, something between the page and the panel is dropping shades: check your monitor's colour mode, turn off dynamic contrast, and make sure the GPU outputs full RGB.
Questions people ask
What causes colour banding?
Banding appears when there are not enough distinct shades to draw a smooth gradient, so it breaks into visible steps. Causes include 6-bit panels, heavy video compression, colour processing in the GPU or monitor (such as software calibration, low brightness via digital scaling, or limited RGB range), and 8-bit content being stretched.
Is some banding normal?
On an 8-bit signal, a full black-to-white gradient has 256 steps. Across a 2560-pixel-wide screen, each step is 10 pixels wide, and on dark greys you may just see them. Strong, uneven or coloured bands are not normal.
What is 6-bit + FRC?
Frame rate control (FRC) lets a 6-bit panel imitate 8-bit by rapidly alternating between neighbouring shades. It usually works well but can show faint shimmer or banding in dark gradients. 8-bit + FRC imitates 10-bit the same way.
Does 10-bit fix banding in the browser?
Only if the whole chain is 10-bit: content, browser, OS, GPU output and panel. Most web content is 8-bit, so this page tests 8-bit gradients, which is what you view every day.