Photoshop Gradients

NB
Posted By
Neil_Buckley
Dec 30, 2008
Views
346
Replies
4
Status
Closed
Hey

While I am working in Photoshop Creating a wallpaper, I notice that my gradients are terrible and I can’t seem to fix it anywere, here is a picture:

<http://files.uploadffs.com/a22a52_Picture_1.png>
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NK
Neil_Keller
Dec 30, 2008
Neil,

256 tonal levels (@8-bits/channel) from white to black are not enough levels to give you the appearance of smooth gradients when you are doing subtle tonal changes across a relatively long distance. To minimize the banding here you can use a greater tonal difference between each end of the gradation, shorten the length of the gradation, or add a little noise to the image.

Neil
AR
alan_ruta
Dec 30, 2008
Whoah, that does look bad. Noise is the way to go but you need to be careful about how muc you use.

What NK says is the answer and there is a formula around but basically think of this:

If you (lets use grayscale for now) vignette from 100 percent to 0 over 50 mm that will be a one percent change every half a mm. That will be a smooth vignette.
On the other hand if you were to go from 50 percent to 60 percent over 10 inches that would be a one percent tonal change each inch–something that is very noticeable. Meganoise won;t help a vignette like that.

I try and keep those exaggerated numbers in my mind when I need to create or fix vignettes so at least I know how workable a file is.

alan
CP
christoph_pfaffenbichler
Dec 30, 2008
You might also try working in 16bit; I suppose for use as a wallpaper the final flattened image might have to be changed to 8bit eventually, but the result may still look slightly better.
NK
Neil_Keller
Dec 30, 2008
The only reason I didn’t mention 16-bit is because of the wallpaper end use. The bottom line is that the art has to be changed.

Neil

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