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M
mal25
Known Participant
February 6, 2020
Question

Gradient tool not working as expected

  • February 6, 2020
  • 1 reply
  • 3249 views

Good Morning,

I am on a W 10, 64 bit system with the latest 2020 version 21.0.1 of PS.  I had recently noticed that I had a problem with my gradient tool when I made a black to white gradient I saw bands of color through the half tones.  This usually indcates I need to reprofile my monitor LOL  however this looked different, the eyedroper showed that there were fluctuations off the neutral by one or two points, I have never seen this before.  I am using the gradient today and I was wondering if I could laydown a gradient and then continue manipulating it after the fact, so I started watching videos on the gradient tool.  The tutorial started by demonstrating drag and drop a gradient from the Gradient Editor to a background layer, this does not work, not only to a background layer but any layer.  I can click and drag on the canvas and it works just fine (except for the bands of color).  Any Ideas on either problem would be appreciated.

Thanks

Chris   

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1 reply

nikunj.m
nikunj.m
Legend
February 6, 2020

Hi Chris,

 

We are sorry about the bands that in the gradient in Photoshop while working with the Gradient tool. 

 

Please update Photoshop to the latest version (21.0.3) through the Creative Cloud desktop application and check if the issue persists. You can also check for updates for both Windows and the Graphics card drivers (from the manufacturers website) to ensure that the issue is not related to missing updates or faulty drivers.

 

Try calibrating your monitor to the sRGB 2.1 color profile and check if that helps. You can check: https://www.windowscentral.com/how-configure-correct-color-profile-your-monitor-windows-10

 

Regards,

Nikunj

M
mal25Author
Known Participant
February 6, 2020

Hi Nikunj,

Yest there were updates to be had, they made no difference.  I also updated the monitor profiles, but I make custom monitor profiles every 2 weeks using iProfiler and a colorimeter, I did this yesterday the profile is good.  As I said before, as the profile ages it wanders from the true colors, but the eyedropper usually confirms that the gradient is neutral and the problem is the monitor.  In this case the eyedropper is confirming what I am seeing, there are color shifts within the RGB Gradient, if I change the document profile to Grayscale it looks as it should, neutral, if I then return to the RGB profile the gradient remains the same, neutral.  The problem is that it is creating a corrupt gradient in RGB.

Thanks

D Fosse
Community Expert
D FosseCommunity Expert
Community Expert
February 6, 2020

What's the document profile?

 

Generally (excluding a corrupt document profile), as long as you're working in 16 bit depth, any banding you see is somewhere in your display system. It has to be. Remember that the display pipeline, from the video card to the panel, is 8 bit depth only! (unless you have a 10 bit capable video card and monitor).

 

It could be the monitor profile, but much more likely it's calibration tables in the video card. If these curves are a bit irregular, it will sit on top of, and add to, the normal 8-bit banding. Banding is cumulative and it quickly adds up.

 

It could also be a buggy video driver. Display color management is executed in the GPU these days, except when you set GPU to "basic" in preferences. Does that make any difference?

 

If it's a ProPhoto file, there's a well known problem with OpenGL code that gives cyanish color bands in the deep shadow values. This also goes away in Basic mode (and sRGB/Adobe RGB).

 

 

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