Making smooth Gradients/Blends

[Legion455]

Hi All; I need some help from the experts.

I have some pen-drawn text (14" tall) that I need to have screen printed. I'm using spot colors in Illustrator to make the text. The top 60% needs to be red and the bottom is yellow. When I output to a Rip, I'm getting some banding that I need to smooth out.

I have a solid yellow underlayer, with Red on the top. So far I've tried three ways to make the effect: 1. straight gradient from Red to white. 2. a Blend - red cutout with a line at the top and lines towards the middle and bottom (w/ dif % of red), ...blend 'em w/ 500 steps and 3. opacity mask ..

So far 2. seems to be the smoothest, ... but I still have some banding, .. so, I've read where you open the object in PS and apply a small noise filter, ... then bring it back into IL and print! ...Well, this sounds good but, I save the file from IL as a CMYK and edit in PS in CMYK, but when I reopen the file in IL, ... it's no longer a Spot Color but has changed to a process color.

If anyone out there can steer me towards a solution, I sure would appreciate it.

FYI the gradient/blend is as follows, ... 95% red at top of object ...80% red at 50% down the object, 50% red at 62% down, 20% red at 74% down, and 5% red at the bottom.

Thanks ever so much, .. as I need to get this job finished and over to the printer!

Legion
aks at iglou daht com

 

[jmgalvin]

The problem could be at your print output end, rather than the ILL file.

You might try checking the document raster effects settings to make sure they're set to HIGH or even higher.

You might also look at the various settings on the Print window, checking Printer Resolution in the output (should be 2400 or higher). On the Graphics tab, make sure that flatness is set to high quality. On the Advanced tab, make sure that the transparency flattener is set to high.

You might try making a pdf with settings like above or using the strandard Press setting and see how that works, as a trial.

Using OSX 10.3.8 on a G4

 

[fizzak]

What he said and:

If you zoom in close enough, you can see the banding. So increase the amount of bands until they cant be detected.

Object>Expand>Expand Gradient To:

Specify {10000} Objects or more.

Hope that G4 is fast.

 

[Legion455]

Thanks guys for the tips. Basically I finally got the file over in Photoshop, .. did the gradients in Photoshop, and blends, put the output in a Spot Channel, .... then ran the Noise Filter at 6%, make sure color is the correct spot color, ... save, .. then open with Illustrator and put the object in the artwork.

Seaparate with RIP and everything is looking good!

peace
Legion