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Blurring does increase the problem Chris I’ve tried everything, I’m talking about 250 300 dpi abobe rgb photos its on the screen and in the prints. Maybe I have to shoot my own grounds and scan?
On screen you shouldn’t see any banding, unless your video LUTs are set weird (gamma 1.0 or similar problems) or you have the bitdepth set to 8 or 16 bit video (use 24/32).
In print could depend on how the image is prepared for print, and the printer resolution.
Since Photoshop’s gradients are already as smooth as possible, shooting new pictures wouldn’t help. You need to figure out what is wrong with your display, then figure out what is wrong with your printing or add noise to hide the printing artifacts.
These are guidelines for vector output, although they may come in handy here as well.
The longer the blend, the greater the potential for banding.
The fewer steps used the greater the potential for banding.
Creations from a 30% tint to a 40% tint will more likely show banding than one from 1% to 100% over the same length. Limiting the range of the blend also limits the number of grays or shades available.
When creating a blend of a color to white specify a 0% tint of the color instead of white on the lighter end of the blend. A tint (or ink) will generally not print well at very low percentages. Talk to your printer.
The best blends are created from a dark color using multiple process inks (such as dark blue using Cyan, Magenta, and Black) to either white or Yellow (the absent ink from the original dark blue color). This will force the greatest change and yield the best visible blend.
If your output is to a postscript 3 imagesetter/CTP device, then you will have nothing to worry about. PS3 can achieve 4096 gray levels.
If printing to a PS2 device, then you need to incorporate adding noise to break up the banding visually, reduce the line screen or use formulas to adjust the gradient.
Reduce line screen or print out on a higher resolution device.
Basically the formula for ps2 output device to retain 256 gray levels is the Printer’s resolution divided by 16= maximum line screen.
So, if you are outputting to a 2400 dpi imagesetter, your line sceen can be no higher than 150 or you start to lose gray levels upon output.
Another formula that needs to be considered is to determine maximum gradient length based upon percentage change.
Formula: percentage change (256) = number of steps 256 is number of gray levels percentage change is difference from the greatest to least percentage in the gradient. If your gradient goes from 30% to 80%, the percentage change is 50%. If you are using cmyk colors, the you use the greatest channel difference. If c10,m20,y30,k40 to c70, m60,y50,k60, the the greatest difference channel is the cyan with a 60% difference.
After figuring out the number of steps, multiply the step # by desired measurement unit.
inches: .03 cms: .0762 points: 2.16
so for the sample cmyk color gradient with the greatest channel difference of 60%
60% (256) or .6(256) =153.6 steps
153.6(.03) = 4.608 inches.
So upon output, if we print to a 2400 dpi imagesetter, the linescreen can be no greater than 150 lpi and the size of the gradient cannot exceed 4.608 inches otherwise reduced gray levels will occur which will increase banding.
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