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Black to 100% transparent gradient


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Dominor Novus

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I need to create a 3000px by 1340px PNG that vertically graduates from 100% opacity black to 0% opacity black.

No matter how I create it I experience banding (demo attached).

Adding noise/blur or changing dither and bit settings do not work. It's not a monitor issue.

Can anyone help me in creating this ridiculously simply image?
 

Attachments

  • demo.png
    demo.png
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Hmm

I honestly don't know what the problem might be, someone more experienced is needed but I do have a guesss

You could try up the resolution of the canvas/project/psd. I'm not sure if it related to the issue :\ but just a hunch.
 
edit :

just googled and found this info , let us know if this helps you :

If you’ve printed an image with a gradient in it, you’re probably familiar with banding (a visible line where one color ends and the next starts, like bands of color, instead of a smooth transition from one color to the next). There’s a very popular tip for getting rid of banding that’s very effective for high-resolution imaging. Open the image in Photoshop and go under the Filter menu, under Noise, and choose Add Noise. When the Add Noise dialog appears, for Amount enter 2, for Distribution choose Gaussian, turn on the Monochromatic checkbox, and then click OK. You’ll see a little bit of this noise when viewing the image onscreen, but when printed at high resolution, the noise disappears and hides the banding. We add noise to every gradient we create for just that reason.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
100% opacity black (#000000) to 0% opacity black(#000000).

Starting point = black
End point = invisible
Gradient direction = vertical

Please refer to the image I've attached to this reply:

settings.png
 
Redcaa - As mentioned in my question, I've tried all actions available online. That specific solution breaks (in my case) on the second action ("Merge not available").

Nemesis - As mentioned in my question, I've already attempted the blur and noise solution. It produces a grainy low-quality effect.

I've been at this for four hours. I've already scoured the solutions available online.

Could someone, anyone, please just TRY what I've described. It takes less than a minute and far less time than searching Google on my behalf.

1) Create a 3000px by 1340px document.
2) Add a vertical black to invisible gradient.
3) Confirm whether or not you too experience banding.
 
For now, I'm going to have to opt for adding 1% noise. It's far from ideal due to the grainy compromise it produces but it's unfortunately the best solution I can find for banded transparent gradients. Thanks for the input in any case.
 
Redcaa said:

Nope, can't see anything like that in your question.
Click to expand...

You're 100% correct. Sorry about that. I meant to mention actions in my list of failed attempts.

Redcaa said:

I gave it a go as well. Got banding as well :(
Click to expand...

:(

Frustrating, isn't it? Much thanks for your time in trying though. It confirms that the issue isn't isolated to just my end.

Apparently, CS6 sorts this problem out. I'm amazed that the issue has persisted up to as long as CS5. You'd think that gradients are pretty fundamental stuff.
 
The best way to get rid of the banding in Photoshop is to create a file under either the 16 bit or 32 bit Mode. When you create a new document, be sure to set this before doing anything otherwise whatever graphics you've already applied will not observe the change. One thing to note though about 32-bit Photoshop files is that they can't be saved as jpg files. I'm not sure why but I think it has something to do with compression algorithm incompatibilities.

http://www.theartofretouching.com/b...ial-difference-between-8bit-16bit-color-space

16bitModeGradient.jpg
 
I'm not sure if you are using 16 or 32 bpc, or only 8, but if 8, Chris' comment about the necessity for 16 or 32 bpc is right on the mark. At 8 bpc, you are almost guaranteed to see banding.

If you are using 16 or 32 and still see banding on your monitor, use the eyedropper tool and check that the readout moves smoothly from one integer to the next without jumps. If there are no jumps, then your monitor is at fault. It is not at all uncommon for monitors to have surprisingly limited bit depth and do things like employ dithering techniques to give the appearance of higher (real) bit depth.

HTH,

Tom M

PS - As I recall, masks in PS always used to be limited to 8 bpc. My understanding is that in recent years this limitation has been removed.
 
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