April 20th, 2009 by Jeff Hipp

Help smoothing out PSD color blends

About this post:

Jeff Hipp shares his strategy for eliminating the subtle banding that occurs in web and print color blends.

Filed under Tips, Tricks & Hints

You've created a nice design that has a strong element of a color blend, but you notice that no matter what you do there is subtle banding in the blend. This is true in web design and more so in hi-res print design – the unfortunate part is that it probably won't show it's ugly banding head until you get your first print proof or so. Frustrating! Trust me, I know.

A few years back I was designing a series of pricey high-end 4 color product booklets that showcased the item large silhouetted on a beautiful cream-beige blended background on the covers. My Creative Director signed of on it and the client signed off on it, so it went to press. When the press proofs came back there was obvious banding in the blend that no one saw before! Especially in the middle and toward the light end. Enhanced by the 4 color process, it even took on a few other colors – a bit like a cream mother-of-pearl. What were we to do? The deadline was tight and these couldn't be produced as is.

This is when it's good to have a great printer & great print Rep.! After a bit of pondering & investigating by the design staff, we showed the problem to our print Rep. – ours was Brett Tuggle of http://gccprint.com in Lawrenceville, GA. We presented him the layout on screen and the laser prints – none of which showed banding. Apparently he had seen this once before and suggested that we simply apply 2% Noise from the filter tool in Photoshop. We were all skeptical, but this worked perfectly, and the next set of proofs looked great!

I've included a before and after image here, but it may be better explained if you try it yourself. Create a long blend in Photoshop on a diagonal – notice banding? Apply the noise and watch most of the banding disappear. You may need to vary the noise % depending on your needs. I hope this helps in any future designs.

1banding3

2noise2

Sick! This is an awesome tip, Jeff.
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