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I'm creating a document for print. Initially I had a rich black background ( I checked with the printer first and they said it would be fine ) and a smaller content area with a vertical gradient ( blue to rich black ) - See ARTBOARD A in the attached file. This gave me some really nice deep blues in the gradient. The printer then decided I couldn't use rich black after all ( !! ) so I had to change both the background and  gradient stop to key black, but this left the gradient looking very dull, grey and washed out ( see ARTBOARD B ). I'd like to retain the look of the original gradient if possible. Obviously if I only change the background to key black and keep the rich black in the gradient, the inner frame is visible ( see ARTBOARD C ). The best solution I can come up with is to keep the rich black in the gradient, and use the transparency tool to fade it out towards the top ( see ARTBOARD  D ) - this looks great on screen but causes banding when I print the exported PDF.

Does anyone know how I can address these banding issues? Or what's causing it in the first place? I need to export the file as a PDF - I've tried lots of different settings. 

Hopefully the attached file will explain it better than I did ! Document palette is included in the file with blue, rich black and key black.

Smooth Gradient.afdesign

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  • Staff

Hi @razorpig,

Sorry to hear you're having trouble! Have you tried converting the document from 8bit colour to 16bit and then exporting the file again? The increased colour information included with 16bit over 8bit certainly does help out smooth out the look of gradients - although I'm unsure if this benefit will transfer to the print side of things, as I have very little experience with printing gradients.

Please do let me know if this helps!

Please Note: I am now out of the office until Tuesday 2nd April on annual leave.

If you require urgent assistance, please create a new thread and a member of our team will be sure to assist asap.

Many thanks :)

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Apologies, I wasn't aware you were using CMYK here - you're correct in saying this isn't supported, as the number of printing presses that support this is rather minimal, so we chose not to add support in Affinity - (https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/13646-feature-request-cmyk-16-bit/&do=findComment&comment=60314)

Unfortunately I'm not aware of other methods for reducing banding when printing, hopefully other forums users with more experience here will be able to add to the conversation :)

 

Please Note: I am now out of the office until Tuesday 2nd April on annual leave.

If you require urgent assistance, please create a new thread and a member of our team will be sure to assist asap.

Many thanks :)

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