Symbolizing Composite Rasters as Stretched RGB values
Included in this tutorial
Access symbology options
RGB primary symbology
Software version in examples: ArcGIS Pro 3.0.0
Credits: L. Meisterlin with Nikolas Michael (2022)
This tutorial briefly demonstrates symbolizing composite rasters in ArcGIS Pro with an RGB symbology, applying stretched values to each color channel.
Related Tutorials:
For creating composite, multiband rasters, see Creating a Composite Band Raster Dataset.
On Raster Symbology: For more information on Stretched values across a color ramp, see Unclassified Quantitative Symbology for Rasters (”Stretched” Colors). For more information on DRA with stretched colors, see Dynamic Range Adjustment for symbolizing rasters.
Access Symbology options
To access the symbology options for a layer, right-click on the layer’s name in the Contents panel and choose Symbology. This will summon the Symbology panel.
If the Symbology panel is already open, select the appropriate layer in the Contents panel to access its symbology options.
Accessing the Symbology panel is demonstrated in other raster symbology tutorials, including this one on “stretched” colors for rasters which are employed by the RGB symbology approach.
RBG Primary Symbology
Composite (multiband) rasters have primary symbology options that do not appear with single-band rasters. To assign a stretched RGB symbology approach to the composite raster, choose RGB from the Primary Symbology drop down.
In the screenshots below: You will recognize several of these options because they resemble the same options available for unclassified, stretched values for symbolizing rasters. The primary differences are…
Rather than choosing a color ramp, three color channels are specified: Red, Green, and Blue (see the screenshot on the left). Each color channel will include a stretched color ramp (either red, green, or blue) based on the values in the band assigned; and
You can choose which bands of your multiband, composite raster should be represented with each of those three (see the screenshot on the right).
composite raster symbology panel with RGB options
composite raster symbology panel with the blue channel band drop-down open
Again, the other options—including Stretch type, Statistics (including DRA), etc—reflect those we see with stretched values with any quantitative raster symbology approach. For more on these options, see the Related Tutorials linked above.