Does anyone have an explanation for why my gradient is choppy? I have never seen it do this before--The shape is a simple rectangle and the screenshots are showing a linear and radial gradient.
When you have a smaller transition in color over a long distance, gradients will looks choppy, as your monitor can only display so many colors. We sometimes add noise to the gradient to help hide that on for example large posters, as a priting pres has similar limitations..
Does it have to do with the specific colors? I have used a gradient on so many designs and I pay attention to this stuff, and I have NEVER seen it do this before
Some gradient combinations will be more prone to banding than others. For example, a grayscale gradient using only black (and no CMY values) will be more likely to show visible banding than levels of gray made of four color CMYK values. That's especially true if the gradient is a subtle change, such as going from 20% K on one end to 30% K on the other end of the gradient. If the gradient spans a significant distance banding is more likely to be visible.