Gradient Prints Streaky

[Morph1]

Hey Guys,

I got this problem while printing gradient color transition,
I've noticed this has happend on numerous occasions however I made decisions and let it slide for a while with in certain jobs,
but now I think it's time to put stop to that and come up with a solution rather then avoiding this problem and lettiing it go by....

I produced a gradient in corel draw going from medium orange to lighter orange in the middle and then stepping down again to a slightly darker orange... I adjusted the gradient steps to max of 600 to try to avoid this streaking..., is this normal what is happenig on the attached image , I think not , I just wanna have a consistent balanced blend between the colors not this streaking garbage that is coming out....

The history of my procedure consists of,

Creating the shape, assigning gradient, tweaking, exporting to an RGB jpg file at 100 dpi , sending it to rip...., standard procedure...,

any help / suggestios would be greatly appreciated.

thanks.

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[HaroldDesign]

One thing that can help is to rasterize and add blur to it. It's hard to avoid a stepped look to something that is literally made of steps in color.

 

[J Hill Designs]

or try less gradient steps...

 

[bob]

Flexi tends to do this with bitmaps of gradients. You can reduce the banding somewhat by selecting a higher quality dither algorithm. The only way to eliminate it is to do the gradient in Flexi, set it to CMYK [the ONLY time you want to do this] and select the highest quality gradient and dither algorithms.

Sometimes the magic works and sometimes it doesn't.

 

[Morph1]

thanks guys,

I think I will run a gussian blur or maybe horizontal speed blur,
geez why wasn't I thinking about this simple solution....,

in regards to flexi , I am not a big fun of any manipulation within flexi interface , I do it here and there though , photoshop is my friend when it comes to bitmap tweaking...

thanks guys,

this forum is great !!!
:Canada:

 

[jon vital]

What RIP you using?

 

[daveb]

gradients

Can I ask a silly question here? (I tend to ask a lot of those) If you like Photoshop why not use it to assign the fills? I've always found Corel to be pretty limited with gradients and shadows when it comes to large images, or at least it causes enough problems like the one you're having to give me a real headache. Anymore I create vector images in Corel and bring them into PS to assign fills, bevels, etc. We really push the limits of Corel, I mean really it was originally designed as "desktop publishing" publishing program. Just because it can do something doesn't mean it can do it well, especially on the scale we're expecting from it.

Nufff said

 

[sjm]

Printer output resolution and the number of colours your printer supports affects the quality of your gradients. The higher the printer resolution the smoother your blends, likewise a 6 colour printer produces a smoother gradient than that a 4 colour printer. Presuming you are using a quality ICC profile.

Adding some noise in PhotoShop to the gradient will help ...

 

[Morph1]

Hey Guys,

Well I ran the blurs in PS , that did not help , I just can't believe it it lol,
strange..., so I just ran another test using flexi though and it worked perfect,
and yes I agree that corel gradients are a big nono, I can call it a complete failure , the same applies to corel shadows...,

I am gonna produce one piece again in PS and see how it works,
other than that I am very happy now... and very disappointed with corel gradient capabilities :Oopsr rather disabilities.. :ROFLMAO:
Great vector program though...

in regards to my rip - Flexi with scanvec, print mode 720x720 , printer mimaki JV3 160 sp 4 color x2 and that has nothing to do with the quality of gradient that had been printing.

Cheers all,
and thanks for all the professional help

 

[Morph1]

Hey all again,
just wanted to add a bit of more disappointment,
I did recreated that blend / gradient in PS cs4 and it also print like garbage regardless the file format type I save ...,
so PS which is my choice for photo editing software has a - point on that one too, very disappointed with PS...,
The final solution is flexi gradient that looks absolutely perfect...,
I was coming to a conclusion that it could be an issue with file format type, but in the end I even loaded the original PS file into flexi and it printed horrible..

any other ideas ???? I can't stand designing in Flexi, corel would be simple,
photoshop would be a prefered solution, anything but flexi...

well, thanks all

 

[daveb]

Has it ever printed these gradients well? Has anything changed program wise? Different... If it has printed alright in the past may just be that you need to reload your Flexi. It's having problems with everything but whats generated in Flexi?? It can't be Corel and PS having the same identical problem.... Flexi is the only common denominator here.
Just my $.02

 

[Morph1]

Nothing had changed, flexi runs and rips perfect and yes I had seen this problem happening on numerous occasions but those times we were able to let it slide , this time 70 of gradient will be exposed with nothing on top of it so it is absolutely important to have this done right...,
the print size is 70"h x 180" L and originally vector generated and in the process PS reproduced and flexi reproduced, everything I did failed except for printing raw vector right out of flexi....

 

[thewood]

The only way to eliminate it is to do the gradient in Flexi, set it to CMYK

This has always produced superb gradients for me.

 

[digitalwoodshop]

Nothing had changed, flexi runs and rips perfect and yes I had seen this problem happening on numerous occasions but those times we were able to let it slide , this time 70 of gradient will be exposed with nothing on top of it so it is absolutely important to have this done right...,
the print size is 70"h x 180" L and originally vector generated and in the process PS reproduced and flexi reproduced, everything I did failed except for printing raw vector right out of flexi....

I use Corel for my Laser, Vinyl and Sublimation stuff....

Can I suggest making the final size change then apply the Gradient.

Might make a difference....

There is a process we use in Lasering a Photo called PhotoGrav. Lots of posts on the Engraver Forums about users changing the size of the image in Corel AFTER applying the PhotoGrav Process and getting lines or Banding in the Laser Output.

Give it a try.... Nothing to loose...

AL

 

[digitalwoodshop]

Just saw another possibility posted in the engraving section of Sawmill Creek...

2 Engravers had banding in Laser work with Corel and found that the default CMYK and RGB settings had changed....

Worth a look.... Design in RGB and print in CMYK or reverse can cause banding...

Good Luck,

AL

 

[Bill Modzel]

Adding Noise in PS will also help the banding issue.

 

[chrislicwinko]

changing your dither type from fmxpress to error correction, it's a longer and more extensive rip process but it smooth's out the gradients.

 

[Morph1]

I agree with the dither type to some extent, I used to print everything with KF diffusion with a realy good results, it just the rip time can not comapre to FM bit I am not sure if that could fix the problem....,
so far the only solution was flexi generated gradient...,
I am still surprised that PS could not handle a better shade stepping...
but hey you do what you gotta do , troubleshooting is a standard practice when it comes to digital printing.... :Big Laugh

thanks again for all the help

 

[jon vital]

It's usually a RIP problem, i.e we have Shiraz/JV33 which has had those streaky problems with gradients whereas Rasterlink will print the same file perfectly.

 

[Sound Gav]

It's usually a RIP problem, i.e we have Shiraz/JV33 which has had those streaky problems with gradients whereas Rasterlink will print the same file perfectly.

Definitely agree, RIPs, including Shiraz can be a weak link when it comes to grads, we had varying levels of success with it.

We moved over to Onyx Postershop last week and that handles grads beautifully.