They are already years by which Landsat 8 online, and there is no doubt that the images are shown incredible. Little by little the bands of the previous missions of Landsat have been incorporated. One of the major novelties of L8 is the blue water/aerosol penetration, detection and cirrus cloud band, for cloud masking and other applications.
For beginners of L8 band composition, here is a list of the most common combinations used, from the basic combination of red, green, blue (RGB) to various compositions that are very useful (revise the procedure to composite satellite image bands in ArcGIS).
| Natural Color | 4 3 2 |
| False Color (urban) | 7 6 4 |
| Color Infrared (vegetation) | 5 4 3 |
| Agriculture | 6 5 2 |
| Atmospheric Penetration | 7 6 5 |
| Healthy Vegetation | 5 6 2 |
| Land/Water | 5 6 4 |
| Natural With Atmospheric Removal | 7 5 3 |
| Shortwave Infrared | 7 5 4 |
| Vegetation Analysis | 6 5 4 |
In case you need to compare the bands of Landsat 8 with Landsat 7, to know how they fit or align, here we present the following table:
| Landsat 7 | Landsat 8 | ||||
| Band | Bandwidth (µm) | Resolution (m) | Band | Bandwidth (µm) | Resolution (m) |
| Band 1 Coastal | 0.43 – 0.45 | 30 | |||
| Band 1 Blue | 0.45 – 0.52 | 30 | Band 2 Blue | 0.45 – 0.51 | 30 |
| Band 2 Green | 0.52 – 0.60 | 30 | Band 3 Green | 0.53 – 0.59 | 30 |
| Band 3 Red | 0.63 – 0.69 | 30 | Band 4 Red | 0.64 – 0.67 | 30 |
| Band 4 NIR | 0.77 – 0.90 | 30 | Band 5 NIR | 0.85 – 0.88 | 30 |
| Band 5 SWIR1 | 1.55 – 1.75 | 30 | Band 6 SWIR1 | 1.57 – 1.65 | 30 |
| Band 7 SWIR2 | 2.09 – 2.35 | 30 | Band 7 SWIR2 | 2.11 – 2.29 | 30 |
| Band 8 Pan | 0.52 – 0.90 | 15 | Band 8 Pan | 0.50 – 0.68 | 15 |
| Band 9 Cirrus | 1.36 – 1.38 | 30 | |||
| Band 6 TIR | 10.40 – 12.50 | 30/60 | Band 10 TIRS1 | 10.6 – 11.19 | 100 |
| Band 11 TIRS2 | 11.5 – 12.51 | 100 | |||
For the most part, the bands are aligned with small adjustments in the spectral ranges. For example: The thermal infrared band of the Landsat 7 is divided into two bands of Landsat 8.
Source: Band Combinations for Landsat 8.