Improve Gradient Blends For Offset Printing

Sometimes the gradient blends you create in your layouts or designs look choppy and do not blend very smoothly from one color to the next. This can be fixed using a tool in Photoshop called noise.

Here are the steps you need to take within Photoshop:

1. At the top of the menu bar choose “Select”
2. Then choose “All”. You should now see a dashed line that was traced around your workspace.
3. Then from the menu bar again, choose “Filter”
4. Select “Noise” from the “Filter” menu
5. Choose “Add Noise”
6. Near the bottom of the next screen you will see a box that says “Amount”. In that box change the value to 2. This should add enough noise to the gradient to allow it to print smoothly. It all depends on the rip that is used by the printer and the screen value. Because of these variables, you may need to add more or less noise to get the gradient to print smoothly.

After you have completed this fix, you may not notice much of a change visually on screen, but there should be enough of a change to allow the gradient to now print smoothly.

If you are proofing on a local color laser printer prior to sending this to your offset printing vendor, you may notice that the gradient still does not blend well. Usually this is a problem with some laser printers and will not be a problem with traditional offset printing. If you are planning on running this job on a digital laser machine, you may want to check with the printer or the manufacturer of the printer being used to see if your gradient blend will even be able to be printed smoothly.

Thanks for reading…till next time

Brian