Photoshop gradient help

[CES020]

We have a customer supplied file that has a gradient in it. The base color is red, then they did a layer on top of it that's a black gradient, to give it a fade from black to red. I printed a swatch as a proof and noticed banding in it and thought it was a printer related issue until I looked at it on the screen and saw that it's actually in the Photoshop file.

I've contacted the graphic designer that created it and he's working on a fix, but doesn't think he can get rid of it completely.

Any suggestions on how to resolve something like shown in the photo below. Just for clarity, and forgive me for not using the proper terms (I have no PS skills), but it looks like it's a base layer that's red, and then the layer on top of that is a gradient that goes from black to transparent. I don't know if that's what he did, but that's what it looks like.

Any ideas? If you click on this, you should be able to see the horizontal banding in the image.

 

[paul luszcz]

In Photoshop you can fade directly from red to black. I reproduced it here and have no banding issues.

I'll post a lo res version here to see if banding shows up as a jpg at lower resolution but I don't see any problems. Any reason you can think of why they did this in two layers?

 

[Pixels Are Bad Mmmkay?]

That seems odd to me. Maybe someone else can better explain what's happening. In Photoshop you don't have to use transparencies to create gradients, as there is a gradient fill tool. When setting up a red to black gradient fill there should be no banding at all, at least not in RGB mode. Is your file in CMYK mode? Being in CMYK mode would be the only reason I can see that you might encounter banding like that.

 

[JJGraphics]

At some point the magenta dots have to end and the black dots have to start. That's a big part of banding when printing.

An easy fix: In photoshop go to Filter > Noise > Add Noise and choose an amount somewhere between 1% - 5%. Make sure you also check the boxes for "Gaussian" and "Monochromatic."

At 1% - 5% it's not enough for your eyes to see, but it's enough for the printer to see, and that's exactly what you want.

Hope that helps!
Justin

 

[x2chris7x]

I've had success fixing similar problems by adding a gaussian blur to the gradient layer

 

[rjssigns]

Blend Tool in Illustrator. Perfection.

 

[bob]

Blend Tool in Illustrator. Perfection.

Absolutely. The way to produce a flawless gradient is to place a pair of narrow rectangles, in your case one red and one black, and use the object blend tool, available in virtually all graphics software. Use as many blend steps as necessary to seamlessly blend the two rectangles. Just keep adding steps until you can't see any banding. It will take a lot more than you think.

I did this for the background on a 5'x40' banner, the gradient ran the long way, and there was no banding. Zero, zip, nada. Using a gradient fill for an object this size would have resulted in weapons grade banding.

 

[CES020]

Thanks guys, I'm trying all the suggestions. I'd be happiest myself to use Illustrator and I can do that, by just replacing his layer with a smart object, but here's what I get when I used the blend tool.

What am I doing wrong? I put in 8 steps, up to 1000 steps, and all I get is pink in the middle.

Clearly I'm doing something wrong.

 

[CES020]

My issue on that last post seems to be because I was in CMYK. When I switched the document mode to RGB, the gradient instantly smoothed out.

 

[rjssigns]

My issue on that last post seems to be because I was in CMYK. When I switched the document mode to RGB, the gradient instantly smoothed out.
View attachment 100482

You learn quickly grasshopper.

 

[graphicwarning]

Absolutely. The way to produce a flawless gradient is to place a pair of narrow rectangles, in your case one red and one black, and use the object blend tool, available in virtually all graphics software. Use as many blend steps as necessary to seamlessly blend the two rectangles. Just keep adding steps until you can't see any banding. It will take a lot more than you think.

I did this for the background on a 5'x40' banner, the gradient ran the long way, and there was no banding. Zero, zip, nada. Using a gradient fill for an object this size would have resulted in weapons grade banding.

That is interesting... I have never considered doing it this way... I'm going to have to remember that tip!

 

[CES020]

You learn quickly grasshopper.

Don't kid yourself, that was a fluke

 

[jfiscus]

The info you seek may be in this thread:
http://www.signs101.com/forums/show...nting-on-colored-wrap-film&highlight=gradient

 

[CES020]

I printed a few tries, some better than others. The document I have been provided is a Photoshop document, at 1/10 scale. I did the gradient in Illustrator and put it in Photoshop as a smart object, exported as a tiff, scaled it in Onyx and printed. It's better than anything before, but it's still got some banding and odd artifacts going on. Is that from scaling the file? What's the resolution to fix it? Drawing it to scale? Is that the only fix for the issues with the gradient, or is there a way to do the blend feature gradient in Illustrator, then place it into Photoshop, scale it in Onyx and have it look smooth?

 

[squishpot]

I always had a fight with gradients in illustrator when it came to black. Basically what I learned (in CMYK mode) is that going from red to 100%K alone goes murky in the middle because there is no red in the black. The program is fading Black > White > Red.
To get a nice solid middle ground, I have to blend the red with a 100%C 100%M 100%y 100%K black, so that the program always has that red base in the gradient. Or blue or whatever colour you want to fade into black.
Sort of hard to explain as I'm still not a full bottle on how it works... but that's the gist of it.
Whatever colours you're merging, try to havea bit of each one at either end of the scale.
You can at least see the difference it makes. This shot was taken while in cmyk mode, and it prints a hell of a lot nicer too.

 

[phototec]

I printed a few tries, some better than others. The document I have been provided is a Photoshop document, at 1/10 scale. I did the gradient in Illustrator and put it in Photoshop as a smart object, exported as a tiff, scaled it in Onyx and printed. It's better than anything before, but it's still got some banding and odd artifacts going on. Is that from scaling the file? What's the resolution to fix it? Drawing it to scale? Is that the only fix for the issues with the gradient, or is there a way to do the blend feature gradient in Illustrator, then place it into Photoshop, scale it in Onyx and have it look smooth?

I like to create at 100% in PS, I don't like the Rip doing funny things to my gradients!

 

[ashleighfiddler]

View attachment 100497

I always had a fight with gradients in illustrator when it came to black. Basically what I learned (in CMYK mode) is that going from red to 100%K alone goes murky in the middle because there is no red in the black. The program is fading Black > White > Red.
To get a nice solid middle ground, I have to blend the red with a 100%C 100%M 100%y 100%K black, so that the program always has that red base in the gradient. Or blue or whatever colour you want to fade into black.
Sort of hard to explain as I'm still not a full bottle on how it works... but that's the gist of it.
Whatever colours you're merging, try to havea bit of each one at either end of the scale.
You can at least see the difference it makes. This shot was taken while in cmyk mode, and it prints a hell of a lot nicer too.

^^^^^ Yes! this is the trick. You have to look at the cmyk values, (whether in RGB or CMYK mode in PSD)and then match those in the black that you create to blend to. for example, A rich black usually works well but you will see MASSIVE differences in the gradient tones by adjusting the levels of individual values in the black. You have to play around with it a little to see how it works, but wow what a difference. It's a fairly easy fix to a common gradient problem but it's not well known. I just recently learned this. I think this can also be applied to the problem of grays printing with green tones.


this image was created in RGB mode, cmyk sliders were adjusted.

 

[toucan_graphics]

View attachment 100497

I always had a fight with gradients in illustrator when it came to black. Basically what I learned (in CMYK mode) is that going from red to 100%K alone goes murky in the middle because there is no red in the black. The program is fading Black > White > Red.
To get a nice solid middle ground, I have to blend the red with a 100%C 100%M 100%y 100%K black, so that the program always has that red base in the gradient. Or blue or whatever colour you want to fade into black.
Sort of hard to explain as I'm still not a full bottle on how it works... but that's the gist of it.
Whatever colours you're merging, try to havea bit of each one at either end of the scale.
You can at least see the difference it makes. This shot was taken while in cmyk mode, and it prints a hell of a lot nicer too.

^^^Pretty much correct^^^^

Regardless of the color format (RGB or CMYK) printers print in CMYK and your monitor displays RGB What looks good on the screen can print horribly and what looks horrid on the screen can print flawlessly- with that being said the black should be made of CMYK (C=100 M=100 Y=100 K=100) and not just K. The Magenta and Yellow creates red and if M & Y are already in the black it *usually* eliminates most non-printer related banding issues. If you still get a little banding you can always add a 1-3% gaussian blur. This should solve the problem. you could try printing this test image or experiment on your own to see how it does.

Also experiment with the orientation of the image as this can sometimes affect the quality of the printed gradient.