Photoshop Ninja
Expert Photoshop tips and tricks for designers and photographers since 2005
Smoother gradients for print
Gradients can go nasty, especially with very subtle, wide ones – improve their look with this little tip!
Converting images from RGB to CMYK can cause some unpredictable colour shifts-especially in very bright colours, but people often prefer to work in RGB colour depth in Photoshop, as you can apply any filter, the colour gammut is wider and the files are smaller due to there only being 3 colour channels. However, if you are preparing images for commercial print you almost always have to have your final file in the CMYK colour depth.
Gradients can suffer particularly if created in an RGB colour depth and then converted to CMYK, with nasty colour banding appearing rather than your nice smooth gradient.
The way round this is to create your gradient in CMYK colour depth-it will produce a much smoother result when printed.
If its on a layer, you can also add a very small amount of noise to break up the banding, but be careful you dont go over the top with this-its usually best to apply it then fade it off a little!
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Loading ...
Written by Jonny Allbut - freelance graphic designer
Last modified: 9 March, 2009 (12:44) | First published: 26 May, 2005
Filed under Techniques - Print 4 Comments »
If you like this, you might also find this related Photoshop content useful too!
No related posts.
Comment by marta maldonado
November 5, 2008 @ 10:50 pm
Very useful information. My problem is that I place a gradient to a photo so it fades from the bottom (by adding a layer mask). However, a heavy banding appears. I’ve read all over and they suggest to add noise to the gradient. Any other suggestions
Comment by admin
November 21, 2008 @ 2:08 pm
Humph – apart from adding noise to break up the banding – really you need to make your gradient smaller – very large gradients can suffer from banding.
Comment by andrew Bishop
March 10, 2009 @ 2:51 am
When working in CMYK my outer glow gradients desaturate towards the edges this also happens when using blurs and other similar filters. Is there any solution to this.
Comment by Photoshop Ninja
March 14, 2009 @ 12:50 pm
If you have semi-transparent glows/shadows you will get that Andrew – to combat it put the layer/layer effect on multiply or screen – that should sort it out for you!