Easiest way to CREATE gradient banding?

[Goldabar]

I've searched high and low for an easy way to do this, but of course it turns out most people want to remove gradient banding

I know usually people need to get rid of gradient banding, but I actually need to create it.

So, what is the easiest way to create gradient banding?

I know that you can do this in the gradient editor itself, by layering multiple color points on top of each other, but the tools are extremely flakey and it can be difficult/frustrating to do it this way. Especially if you already have a smooth gradient and want to introduce banding to it. What I want to know is; does anyone have any tips for using the editor to introduce banding to an already smooth gradient, within the gradient editor itself?

And failing that, is there a filter or some other method for introducing banding to a gradient that has already been applied to the image?

[Twelvebitstyle]

Try Filter/Artistic/Poster Edges, or Cut out.
The edges can look a little sloppy and pixelated, but i guess that depends on the resolution of your image

[Goldabar]

Awesome, thanks! Giving this a try. Seems to be tough to get the banding to be nice and clean, without an weird artifacting. Probably just need to mess with the filter settings some more. Thanks for the suggestion!

[webwize]

You could also use the Indexed Colour mode:

Image/Mode/Indexed Colour

If you do this you can set the numbers of "bands you are looking for and it should be very smooth.



This was created with these settings:



This does however have the drawback of affecting your whole image so best to create in another file and paste the results into whatever you are working on.

webwize

[Paul]

Very nice mate, good little tut also.

[Goldabar]

Excellent technique. Thankyou!