Digital Dye Sublimation Printing of Gradients

Gradients present a special challenge in large format digital dye sublimation printing. Gradual color change over a wide area can result in unexpected color shifting or banding.
  • Gray gradients: Gray gradients will almost always exhibit banding with pink shading.
Gray Gradients

          Either avoid gray gradients entirely or introduce patterns that will trick the eye. 

Gradient Steps
  • Avoid using stepped blends. If you absolutely must use stepped blends, make sure they include a very large number of steps. Even with a large number of steps, large format prints often exhibit color banding issues.
  • Avoid putting color stops too close together. Putting the stops too close together will definitely produce color banding.
  • Many gradients that transition between dark colors (for example - black to purple) will often have white banding issues when printed. We have found that we can overcome this problem by using multiple pass printing. Multiple pass printing introduces physical dithering.
Gray Gradients
  • Using RGB colors instead of PANTONE colors sometimes reduces the amount of white banding that occurs in gradients with dark color transitions.
  • Tonal gradations can also be created using Illustrator's Gradient Mesh tool. This method is independent of the Gradient Pallet. It allows for finer control over the gradient and can reduce unwanted printer effects.
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