Banding on fills

**Rik** · 02 August 2010, 08:11 PM

Hi Xperts.

I am getting some banding on fills when the colours are closer together.
Surely, there is something I have not set properly?

If you move the colours closer together (for example, the lighter colour to be a bit more darker) then the bands become wider. But they are still there.

Please see attached file of example.

**gwpriester** · 02 August 2010, 08:37 PM

Maybe it is the power of suggestion but I see banding as well.

I tried creating a 255-step blend between the two colors and the banding is still there. Curious.

My advice. Use other colors.

**ss-kalm** · 02 August 2010, 08:39 PM

Personally, I think that the banding is caused by the limitation of the hardware not the software. However, I've been wrong before ..... many many times.

**Rik** · 02 August 2010, 08:42 PM

Well, Gary.

Not the answer I was looking for?!

I don't mean this the way it sounds but if you were asked to produce something, you would tell the customer that they cannot have those colours?!

**gwpriester** · 02 August 2010, 08:45 PM

I would tend to agree, Keith. Except my monitor claims to be able to create over a billion colors (DELL Ultra Sharp 24") and I can see the banding.

Vibrant, Accurate Color: PremierColor technology delivers color depth of 1.07 billion and 110% color gamut (typical)1

**Josè Campoy.** · 02 August 2010, 09:19 PM

No, the problem is xara designer this time i do not see the banding on a photoshop gradient, using the same colours, and the problem are not the colours, i use different colours and the banding is there, maybe less noticeable but still present, also for the circular fill, its a gradient problem in X Designer.

**Drwyd** · 02 August 2010, 09:26 PM

Just finished doing the same comparison as Jose. Same results.

Sure is ugly

Update: X4 is the same

**Rik** · 02 August 2010, 09:50 PM

Disappointing that Xara cannot produce something as simple as this?

I would have thought that this sort of work would have been better in Xara than in Photoshop.

Or am I wrongly thinking that Xara is king for this sort of work?

**handrawn** · 02 August 2010, 10:04 PM

this looks like the color depth problem to me, but Im not pretending to be an expert and got a bit confused when it was recently discussed

basically, in a gradient xara is limited in the number of steps it can have because it is [I think] 8bit, whereas CS photoshop is 16bit

have a look here:

http://www.talkgraphics.com/showthread.php?t=46578

it might help...

**steve.ledger** · 02 August 2010, 10:17 PM

Disappointing that Xara cannot produce something as simple as this?

Hi Rik,
With vector gradient fills, filled areas in are more complicated than for rasters. Each discrete filled area is a polygon (bounded by a closed path).
PhotoShop creates raster gradients, Xara creates vector gradients.
The same banding is seen in InkScape and CorelDraw.
You'll see this right back to X1.

Import a raster gradient into Xara and there is no banding right?

Try using Xara software in a vector mindset rather than expecting a pixel painter.