How to remove the extra shade added in the gradient tool?

[samaossman]

Whenever I try to create a gradient of any two colors, there this extra shade that gets added between the two colors, and I can't seem to be able to remove it!

[Ton Frederiks]

RGB? CMYK? Between which colors?

[samaossman]

RGB. Between the two reds, there's a lighter shade, I have no idea where it's coming from.

[Ton Frederiks]

What are the RGB values of the 2 reds?

Can you reproduce it in a new document?

[samaossman]

[213, 0, 50] and [181, 0, 48]. The same issue occurs even if I create a new document/restart illustrator. And it happens with all colors not just these two shades.

[Jacob Bugge]

Sama,

It also looks strange to me; more than anything else, it seems to be a heavy drop in saturation and brightness.

You can force a better apearance into the gradient by adding a Color Stop right beneath (same percentage as) the Midpoint Indicator (the diamond above the gradient Slider) and give it the (best fit) RGB colour values (set) midway between those at the ends; you can use that until someone comes up with a brighter solution, or till the end of days, whichever occurs first.

[samaossman]

I'll give it a try, thank you! Hopefully someone can come up with a brighter solution before the end of days. 🙂

[Jeff Witchel, ACI]

This is all very curiuos!

Using the same RGB Colors on my 27" iMac, I am not getting the kind of grayish color you are seeing on your monitor. (See screenshot attached.) Can it possible be the monitior? What kind of a monitor are you using?

Is anyone else get these same grayish (less saturated) results with gradients using these two shades of red?

To me, the look is very reminiscent of a CMYK gradient between a brighter color and 100% K, where the transition becomes a lot less saturated in the middle.

[samaossman]

I'm using 15" HP PC. These are the display information.

[Jacob Bugge]

Sama,

When you create the new Color Stop it would be good to know the initial value, before you change it; I believe you will find that it has less R than expected and more B and a non insignificant amount of G.

You can try at least some of the easy things at the top of the list below, which deals with general (non document specific) corruptions; 7) is rarely relevant, but one never knows.

Edit: I also see what Jeff sees, of course.

THE LIST

If things that should work simply refuse to (all possibilities exhausted including the A) - C) below (and carefully making sure you are performing (all) the needed things)), you may try (the relevant part(s) of) the list 1) - 8 ) below.

Sometimes, (certain) things may fail or stop working for no apparent reason. When the (other) possible reasons/cures fail to work, it may be some kind of (temporay or permanent) corruption, or even some inconvenient preference setting(s), which may be cured with something on the following list set up in an attempt to provide a catchall solution for otherwise unsolvable cases. It starts with a few easy and harmless suggestions 1) - 3) for milder cases, and goes on with three alternative ways 4) - 6) of resetting preferences to the defaults (easily but irreversibly and more laboriously but more thoroughly and also reversibly), then follows a list 7) of various other possibilities, and it ends with a full reinstallation 8 ). If no other suggestions work, or if no other suggestions appear, you may start on the list and decide how far to go and/or which may be relevant.

The following is a general list of things you may try when

A) The issue is not in a specific file,

B) You have a printer correctly installed, connected, and turned on if it is physical printer (you may use Adobe PDF/Acrobat Distiller as the default printer with no need to have a printer turned on, obviously you will need to specify when you actually need to print on paper), and

C) It is not caused by issues with opening a file from external media.

D) It is not caused by other applications (you may close down/disable everything else running, including browsers and antivirus, then try again). There are quite a few usual suspects that may disturb and confuse Illy (job description Adobe Illustrator) so she moves in mysterious ways (even more than usual, some would say).

You may have tried/done some of them already; 1) and 2) and 3) are the easy ones for temporary strangenesses, and 4) and 5) and 6) are specifically aimed at possibly corrupt/inconvenient preferences); 7) is a list in itself, and 8 ) is the last resort.

If possible/applicable, you should save current artwork first, of course.

1) Close down Illy and open again;

2) Restart the computer (you may do that up to at least 5 times);

3) Log out of your Adobe account and log back in;

4) Close down Illy and press Ctrl+Alt+Shift/Cmd+Option+Shift during startup (easy but irreversible);

5) Move the folder (follow the link with that name) with Illy closed (more tedious but also more thorough and reversible), for CS3 - CC you may find the folder here:

https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/kb/preference-file-location-illustrator.html

6) Follow the instructions here: https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/setting-preferences.html

7) Look through and try out the relevant among the Other options (follow the link with that name, Item 7) is a list of usual suspects among other applications that may disturb and confuse Illy, Item 15) applies to CC, CS6, and maybe CS5);

Even more seriously (this may be serious because you may need to restore plugins and whatnot afterwards if you have customized things), you may:

8 ) A) Uninstall (ticking the box to delete the preferences if applicable), B) run the Cleaner Tool (if you have CS3/CS4/CS5/CS6/CC), and C) reinstall. You may try without step B), but sometimes it is needed, because otherwise things may linger.

As it appears from this thread, it may be worth repeating this if it fails to help the first time:

https://forums.adobe.com/thread/2283530

To uninstall:

https://www.adobe.com/search.html#q=uninstall%20illustrator&sort=relevancy&start=1

Cleaner Tool:

http://www.adobe.com/support/contact/cscleanertool.html

[samaossman]

Thank you so much for this! Really helpful 🙂 

[Ton Frederiks]

Since we cannot replicate it and you can, can we have a look at your color settings?

Can you make a screendump of your Illustrator Edit > Color Settings.

And a screendump of the document color profile (which can be found at the bottom of your window):

[samaossman]

Here they are:

[Kurt Gold]

Can you share a sample .ai file?

Also, which version of Illustrator are you using? What operating system?

[samaossman]

I'm using Illustrator 2020 on Windows 10. 
Here's a link for the file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/11x0ln91Y8Muq6daQocIHXGn-Lp2SprrL/view?usp=sharing

[Kurt Gold · Accepted solution]

It looks like the issue occurs because the gradient is a spot colour (swatch) to non-spot-color definition.

It should be solved if you change the spot colour swatch to a process colour.

[Jeff Witchel, ACI]

Yes, when I double click on the Spot Color and change it to Process in the dialog window, the issue goes away. Good call Kurt!

[samaossman]

YES! It worked thank you so much!

[Jacob Bugge]

Luckily you joined the thread before the end of time, Kurt.