Hi all! I’m having a problem with the gradient fill in draw. If I do a horizontal gradient every thing is fine. It looks fine on the screen, it prints fine and it subs fine. If I do a vertical gradient it has lines across it. It prints that way and it subs that way. I’ve tried changing settings but I can’t get it to stop. Btw...this has been this way in previous versions of Corel draw as well.
What kind of print setup are you using? I've seen banding issues with CorelDRAW gradients from time to time in large format printing, enough so that I have a habit of porting my CDR work over to Adobe Illustrator to create PDF or EPS files to then run through Onyx Thrive or Raster Link Pro (depending on the printer being used).
I’ve been using Epson desktop printers. I honestly don’t think it’s the printing because the lines actually show on the screen in Corel before I print. The lines don’t show when the gradient is horizontal.
In the Fountain Fill settings I typically set the number of steps (in the "Flow" part of the dialog box) to the max of 999 and check the "Smooth Transition" option. That usually improves things a good bit.
Bobby Henderson said:I typically set the number of steps (in the "Flow" part of the dialog box) to the max of 999
Actually, that's not the best solution, as a matter of fact it can ruin the printed result.If you lock the number of steps, you also prevent it from being smooth in some cases.Even though 999 may sound perfect, it can create banding in large format prints, and in some cases also in smaller formats.I remember many years ago when I tried to print vinyl for a sign, and the background had a dark brown CMYK elliptical gradient going from 43, 52, 71, 70 to 43, 52, 71, 90.The only difference was as you can see the black going from 70 to 90.By locking the steps, even though it was 999, I effectively also prevented Draw from creating more than 21 different colors in that gradient, and it resulted in very noticeable banding and an expensive reprint.So leave the Steps checkbox unchecked.The reason is that by leaving it unchecked, you tell the export filter or RIP to create a fill going from color A to color B, and as a result it uses as many colors as it can handle.At least that's what I've been told, and my experience tells me it is (or at least was ten years ago) correct.Give it a try.
The problem is the default setting is a puny 256 steps. And CorelDRAW often tries printing gradients with only 256 steps.