How can I make gradients show banding?

[ThereIsHope]

Hello guys!

 

I'm looking for a way to create gradients that are made of solid bands (show banding), as opposed to have them dithered. I understand that the dither is to make them look smoother. But for a particular project I am working on, I need them with banding.

 

I can accomplish this in Photoshop. Its gradient tool bar has a Dither tick box. So you have the option. I thought I found something similar in Affinity Photo/Designer. In Preferences/Performance>"Dither Gradients". But this tick box doesn't seem to affect the Gradient tool in Photo or the Fill Tool in Designer. Maybe it refers to something else?

 

Any ideas how could I produce such gradients?

 

Many thanks!

 

[Chip J.]

I think what you are looking for is the Pixelate Filter... Filter > Distort > Pixelate.. Then change the  Quantization value.

[carl123]

You can also try adding one or two box blur filters with a small radius which may give you the effect you want.

Alternatively, exporting a smooth gradient as a JPG with a low quality setting (e.g. 60) will introduce some banding.

[lepr]

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[ThereIsHope]

Hello guys!

 

Thank you all for your kind replies. Something else I should have added in my original post, is that I need a gradient that give me a linear interpolation between colours A and B. For example, say I create a 256x256 layer and apply a greyscale gradient from left (pure black) to right (pure white). Without dithering I would expect it to go from 0 to 255 linearly.

 

I tried all your suggestion. My results below:

 

@csh2000. I tried Pixelate Filter on the dithered gradient but unfortunately colours bled from adjacent bands. And I lost the 0 to 255 range (as per my example above)

 

@carl123. Blur filters worked well but at a higher radius, so to stop bleeding colours between bands. Unfortunately I lost my extreme side colours. Using my example above, both side left and right didn't start from 0, 255 respectively, due to too much blurring. I could somehow mitigate this by extending the edges and blurring the middle. But to get the desired result was tricky.

 

@owenr. Gradient Overlay. This! This worked out of the box, well, the only thing I had to do is set the scale X to 99% so I don't lose colour B, and I have the full range in proper bands. Didn't realised there was this effect down there... with so many way to create gradient in Affinity product

 

Indeed, no dither is applied to Gradient Overlay and no option to added it either. I hope this is not a bug and they leave it the way it is now haha.

 

Thank you all very much once again. I learnt new things today thanks to you all.

 

Ta