Planet Photoshop

Want Better Gradients On Press? Here’s The Tip

July 1, 2008 by Corey Barker Tip of the Day 1 Comment

If you’re designing a job that will ultimately go to a printing press in CMYK mode and it’s going to contain one or more gradients, you’ll get better printed results (less color shifts) if you create those gradients after you convert to CMYK mode.

Posted by Corey Barker

Corey is the newest education and curriculum developer for the National Association of Photoshop Professionals. He is a graduate of the Ringling School of Art & Design in Sarasota, Fl, with a degree in Illustration. Over the years, Corey has worked as a graphic artist in a variety of disciplines such as illustration, commercial design, large format printing, motion graphics, web design and photography. His expertise in Photoshop and Illustrator have earned him numerous awards in illustration, graphic design and photography. Using Photoshop since Version 2, his expertise and creativity have evolved exponentially with every new version, which makes Corey an invaluable addition to the NAPP team.

One comment on “Want Better Gradients On Press? Here’s The Tip”

  1. You can also add a very slight amount of noise to give the gradient some “tooth”. I almost always do gradients in PS instead of vector apps. Especially if you are going from really dark to really light. You might also talk to your printer about the curves they use on their press. Many printers have gone to a higher contrast curve to meet customer demands for “punchier” photos and graphics. This curve results in banded gradients due to decreased dynamic range. On a job a few years back, I had a printer use their old press curve and it fixed the banding problems we were having.

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