Banding in gradients when printing

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

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

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

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.

--
Art, photography, shareware, polyamory, literature, kink: all at http://www.xeromag.com/franklin.html

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).