Banding in gradients when printing

M
Posted By
Mike
Nov 15, 2005
Views
305
Replies
4
Status
Closed
Have created an image that uses a lot of gradients. It looks fine on the screen but when I print the .ai file directly,
the gradients break up into a series of bands. I assumed at first that this was due to the limited gamut in the
printers (tried both ink-jet and lazer colour printers). But if I export it as a .bmp file and then print that – there
is no banding and I get nice smooth gradients. Any sugestions as to what is causing this and/or how I can improve the
print from the .ai file?

Mike
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Fred Athearn
Nov 15, 2005
I had a problem like that and I was able to fix it by putting a small blur on the gradient background. I couldn’t see any change on screen but somehow it was enough to kill that banding.

On Wed, 16 Nov 2005 09:32:09 +1300, Mike
wrote:

Have created an image that uses a lot of gradients. It looks fine on the screen but when I print the .ai file directly,
the gradients break up into a series of bands. I assumed at first that this was due to the limited gamut in the
printers (tried both ink-jet and lazer colour printers). But if I export it as a .bmp file and then print that – there
is no banding and I get nice smooth gradients. Any sugestions as to what is causing this and/or how I can improve the
print from the .ai file?

Mike
W
Waldo
Nov 16, 2005
Mike wrote:
Have created an image that uses a lot of gradients. It looks fine on the screen but when I print the .ai file directly,
the gradients break up into a series of bands. I assumed at first that this was due to the limited gamut in the
printers (tried both ink-jet and lazer colour printers). But if I export it as a .bmp file and then print that – there
is no banding and I get nice smooth gradients. Any sugestions as to what is causing this and/or how I can improve the
print from the .ai file?

Mike

Are both printers PostScript printers? In that case, try selecting PostScript 3 in the driver.

Waldo
T
Tacit
Nov 16, 2005
In article ,
Mike wrote:

Have created an image that uses a lot of gradients. It looks fine on the screen but when I print the .ai file directly,
the gradients break up into a series of bands. I assumed at first that this was due to the limited gamut in the
printers (tried both ink-jet and lazer colour printers). But if I export it as a .bmp file and then print that – there
is no banding and I get nice smooth gradients. Any sugestions as to what is causing this and/or how I can improve the
print from the .ai file?

Are the printers you are using PostScript printers?

Illustrator expects PostScript printers, and does not print as well to low-end consumer printers that aren’t PostScript.

If you’re using non-PostScript printers, try turning the Illustrator file into a PDF and printing the PDF from Adobe Reader or Acrobat.

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M
Mike
Nov 17, 2005
In article , says…
In article ,
Mike wrote:

Have created an image that uses a lot of gradients. It looks fine on the screen but when I print the .ai file directly,
the gradients break up into a series of bands. I assumed at first that this was due to the limited gamut in the
printers (tried both ink-jet and lazer colour printers). But if I export it as a .bmp file and then print that – there
is no banding and I get nice smooth gradients. Any sugestions as to what is causing this and/or how I can improve the
print from the .ai file?

Are the printers you are using PostScript printers?

Illustrator expects PostScript printers, and does not print as well to low-end consumer printers that aren’t PostScript.

If you’re using non-PostScript printers, try turning the Illustrator file into a PDF and printing the PDF from Adobe Reader or Acrobat.
Thanks all – and excuse me for posting to the photoshop group rather than to the illustrator group (where I thought I
had aimed it).

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