Unfortunately the art that was sent to us was created by about 26 different individual squares, each with a progressively lower screening layered on top of the previous square. When we go to output the film, obviously there is not a smooth transaction between gradients. It pops out when we go to press. We were hoping to fix it up on our end.

I've been searching for a plugin to allow the creation of a square gradient but haven't had any luck so far.

Thank you for the replies. I did do this, saved as a PDF and checked the file Acrobat. Acrobat seems to only recognize full percentage screens? The transition of the gradient screen went from 9 down to 1, except it only showed whole numbers. It looked fine on screen. Then, I placed the file in InDesign so we could step it properly for the presses. After this, I exported the file as a PDF. Now, the screen transition in Acrobat read as 9,8,9,8,7,8,7,6...and so on. I assume this has to do with the blending, but the straight save as a PDF from Illustrator didn't have the differing sequences for screen gradients. Both looked fine on screen and appeared to have a visually smooth transition; however, when we output the film, the transition on the negative didn't look smooth whatsoever. A press test confirmed this. Now, I may just step the file in Illustrator and hope this makes a difference.

Are there any suggestions how to make the transition smoother? Should I apply more steps? I used 50.

Again, to sum up: On screen the gradient trasition looks smooth, but on the negative and on print, it looks bad. Also, why does Acrobat using the object inspector screen only show whole number screen percentages? We work with gradient screents constantly and never had I had a square gradient like this. I hope it's not something more technical with the RIP software and line screens.

Thanks again.

Unfortunately I actually need to go from a green area screened 10% down to the same green, only screened 3%. From what I can tell, the smooth option doesn't work for smoothing the same colors even if they are screened differently. I am able to use the "steps" and then smooth which gives the gradient a good appearance on screen, but as soon as the negative is output, it looks like a staircase.

Yeah, it appears perfect on screen, but when ripped to the neg, the banding is quite visible....as far as using a rasterized image from Photoshop, how would that help reduce the banding? I'm not opposed to that idea, in fact I will do that tomorrow. I'm just curious. See, I can get the gradient perfect on screen in Illustrator, the issue is when it's ripped on a neg. I figured I was doing something incorrectly; however, now I'm starting to doubt that. I just hope it's not a calibration issue with our rip hardware...that's a different beast. Anyway, like I said, I will attempt using a tif tomorrow after a press test.

Thanks.

Well is appears our rip software somehow was changed over from our default to a commercial setting resulting in improper line screens. All responses were helpul, but ultimately it came down to an improper setting on the software.

Thanks again. This forum has been a great tool.

Yep...just like they should.