Smooth Gradients - How Well Do They Print?

Buy a print and find out.

Good suggestion Lisa :-)

Happy to hear from anyone that could comment though.

Hi Philip -

I haven’t seen samples of gradients printed from FAA, but if you are working in Photoshop, it will help to make sure your gradients are dithered (this is an option in the gradient editor, and it’s not on by default; click the little square to turn it on). Dithering helps prevent banding in gradients.

Also, it looks like the colors you are using in this piece may be out of gamut, meaning those highly saturated bright magentas and blues are likely not available in the printed inks and thus the print will turn out somewhat darker and more muted color than you are seeing on the screen. When you are selecting colors in Photoshop, be sure not to select those that show an exclamation mark in the color picker. The exclamation mark indicates the color is out of gamut and will not print like you see it on the screen.

Hi Becky, Thanks for your comments.

I don't have/use PS so unable to look into your 'dithering' suggestion.

The image was generated in Forge Filter which seems to have the usual basic 'file save' options, but the example image above was exported from Lightroom as a sRGB file at 100% quality, so would assume (???) that an sRGB file should be within gamut of a paper printer??

Will see if anyone else is able to comment on this, otherwise Lisa's suggestion would be a good option as then I could decide myself about print quality.

There is no way to really know, because we can't get the color profiles for the printers used by FAA's suppliers, and it's the printer gamut that really matters. Even ordering a print doesn't settle it because FAA uses various suppliers for prints, so your next print could be different. Best to stay inside sRGB or at least Adobe.

Jim, good point about potential for print variation through use of different print suppliers.

My knowledge of print matters is very limited, and I usually upload sRGB files to FAA, but for this type of image perhaps Adobe RGB might be a better option? Or......do the printers only use sRGB files for printing????

There are differing opinions as to whether you should use sRGB or aRGB here. The choice does not automatically ensure that your colors will print, though; you can choose whatever colors you want, but many will fall outside of the range that the printer can reproduce. In other words, the printer’s range of available colors is much smaller than either the sRGB or the aRGB range.

In Lightroom, though, maybe you can choose some printer profile (one of the Epsons would likely work) and get an indication of whether your colors are out of gamut. Maybe someone with more Lightroom experience than I can chime in here and say how to do that.

Related staying with sRGB, the internet websites and monitors mainly uses sRGB.

Dave Bridburg
Bridburg.com
Post Modern Gallery

I suppose there will never be a print technology that can completely match what is displayed on a colour monitor....think its the issue of 'reflected' light versus 'transmitted' light?? But I was under the impression that sRGB was the 'lowest' gamut available, and that printers should be able to match colours from these files reasonably well?? I could export a file from Lightroom with a higher gamut, eg Adobe RGB or ProPhoto RGB, but if FAA printers don't use these file types, I guess it would be best to just upload sRGB files here.

i think if there was a problem we would hear about it on the reviews. it would be a common theme even if the person doesn't have an eye for art, they can see banding in a print.


----Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

Also, with the FAA/Pixels 100% satisfaction guarantee, any buyers unhappy with a product could always return it anyway. Think I will give them a try and upload them.