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gradient question

crny1

New Member
In illy if I use a gradient from lets say white to blue the gradient turns into a purple through the middle. How do I go about making the purple the blue so that it fades from blue to white without purple. Hope this makes sense?
 

SignMeUpGraphics

Super Active Member
Just did some testing and it looks like a CMYK gradient will get a slight purple tinge to it in the middle, whereas an RGB gradient doesn't seem to exhibit the same issue.
Possibly do your design in RGB if it's causing an issue on this job.
 

Johnny Best

Active Member
You can also go to objects / blend and use smooth and make it 100 steps as an example to get a gradient with just two colors. I like to do the gradient in Photoshop and bring it into Illustrator. But I work in rgb and not cmyk like SignMeUp suggested and that might be the problem.
 

LogoJETUSA

New Member
If you need to keep it in CMYK, you could add a center point to the gradient around the 50% mark, and adjust the color of that point to be more cyan than magenta, which will tone down the purple hue.
 

TimToad

Active Member
As stated by others, its probably a gamut issue with your printer as much as anything. If you must work in CMYK, you can always do like LogoJETUSA suggested and add that third color point at 50% and make it half of what the full tone is. Another thing I'll do sometimes is tint the lightest color with 1 or 2% of the middle color. The untrained eye could never pick up that little of color but it does help the transitions.
 

shoresigns

New Member
A gamut issue is not the root cause of the problem. This is just how CMYK printing works. It would be logical to assume that if you start with 100% cyan and 100% magenta and transition to white, keeping the cyan and magenta in equal amounts, the hue would stay constant, but it doesn't. It transitions from a fairly neutral blue to a slightly purple-tinted blue.

To solve this you have to put extra stops in your gradient and adjust them to compensate. It might be easier to add the stops in RGB mode and then convert to CMYK.
 

crny1

New Member
Thanks for all the help eveyone. Between switching to RGB and adding a point at 50% cured the problem. Thanks again
 
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