rasterize/add grain in Illustrator?

[eyeon]

I have a question that I'm sure someone could answer relatively easily -- is there a way to add a small amount of grain to a gradient within a document to avoid banding when printing? My company uses gradients frequently, and many of my designs come back from the printers with banding... I suppose I have just never learned how to eliminate this problem... I assume that one could rasterize the layers that include gradients and add grain to them, but I can't seem to make it work within Illustrator.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[aricher]

Illustrator gradients will usually have banding on press. The print production supervisor at my company has always recommended creating all gradients in Photoshop and then place them into your Illustrator file. it's a pain but it works. As far as rasterizing and adding grain within an AI file I can't help you as that's not how I work with this kind of problem.

 

[HughJ]

Illustrator gradients will usually have banding on press. The print production supervisor at my company has always recommended creating all gradients in Photoshop and then place them into your Illustrator file. it's a pain but it works. As far as rasterizing and adding grain within an AI file I can't help you as that's not how I work with this kind of problem.

the banding should only be apparent if the file is saved as an .ai file, if saved as an .eps there should be no banding whatsoever, regardless of where or what its being printed on (assuming its being outputted through a postscript device)

as for the grain, im sure there is a layer style under effects>graphic styles (its been a while since i used Illustrator) but there is bound to be a suitable effect

 

[aricher]

the banding should only be apparent if the file is saved as an .ai file, if saved as an .eps there should be no banding whatsoever, regardless of where or what its being printed on (assuming its being outputted through a postscript device

Not so my friend. We offset print .eps Illustrator files on 100 lb gloss text every week of the year and have experienced tons of cases of banding. The problem is especially evident on larger items. One item we print is 24" W x 48" H. If the gradient is in a small section it isn't usually a problem. If the gradient is over more than 14" it will start banding. This isn't a printer issue - we use multiple vendors. We've even tested the exact same file saved as .ai, .eps and with the gradient as a Photoshop .tif placed into an Illustrator .eps file. Always the .tif/placed file works best.

 

[eyeon]

So I suppose the best option is to create the gradient in Photoshop and place it -- I hadn't thought of this. I was hoping for a relatively easy way to do this from within Illustrator, thus not having to deal with the hassle of external/placed files, but this certainly works. I assume the same is true of InDesign documents as well?

Thanks a lot for the replies.