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Want Better Gradients On Press? Here’s The Tip

 

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.

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1 Comment

  1. kevio said on — July 3, 2008 @ 2:35 pm

    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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Viewing and Basking in your Image

When I’m done working with an image, I like to sit and admire it (hey, I spent six hours working on it, I should). To do that, I hit the Tab key, then hit the F key three times. This hides all of the panels and toolbars and lets you see the image by itself surrounded by black. To get back to regular mode, press the F key and the Tab key one more time.

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