Renders a linear or radial gradient with certain features that can reduce or eliminate banding artifacts caused by codec compression.
The quality of a banding-free gradient ultimately depends on the type of codec used for compressing your material. It is always best to experiment with different parameters (especially the “Diffusion” setting) and preview your final results by exporting in your target codec.
Effect Parameters
Presets
Presets contain a snapshot of the plug-in parameters. The Presets control lets you choose among one of the presets built into the plug-in, save current parameter values to a preset file, or load an existing preset file from disk.
A preset file saved to disk via the "Save As" button can be loaded from another instance of the same plug-in by clicking the "Open" button. Presets generated in one host can also be loaded from the same plug-in when used in a different host.
Center
The center of the gradient.
Gradient
Lets you choose the type of gradient. The available options are:
- Linear (2 colors): generate a linear gradient with a smooth progression between two colors.
- Linear (3 colors): generate a linear gradient with a customizable progression between three colors.
- Radial: generate a circular gradient with adjustable softness.
Angle
The orientation of the linear gradient. This parameter is only available when the current gradient option is “Linear (2 colors)” or “Linear (3 colors)”.
Width
This parameter controls the distance between the Start and End colors, relative to the Center of a linear gradient. When generating a radial gradient, this parameter controls the radius of the shape.
Softness
Controls the margin around the circular shape. The margin area is where the Start and End colors form a smooth transition. This parameter is only available when the current gradient option is “Radial”.
Diffusion
The amount of noise introduced in the original gradient.
Sharpness
Controls the contrast between each neighboring pixel in the generated gradient.
Midpoint
Controls the location of the Middle Color relative to the Start and End colors. A value of 0.5 places the midpoint exactly at the Center of the gradient.
Diffusion
The smoothing coefficient used to draw the gradient. This parameter may help reduce the artifacts that are visibile when the gradient is rendered using a codec with poor ability for preserving smooth color transitions.
Start/Middle/End Color
The colors and opacities used to draw the gradient. The Middle Color parameter is only available when the current gradient option is “Linear (3 colors)”.
Midpoint
Controls the location of the midpoint, relative to the start and end points. A value of 0.5 places the midpoint between the Start and End points. This parameter is only available when the current gradient option is “Linear (3 colors)”.
Spread
The smoothing coefficient used to draw the gradient. This parameter controls the progression from one color to the next. This parameter is only available when the current gradient option is “Linear (3 colors)”.
High-precision Output
This parameter, available only inside Final Cut Pro, controls the color range of the final output. Although you will see no difference in the Canvas window (due to the fact that Final Cut Pro always previews in 8 bit color) high-precision clamping ensures that your output falls within a predictable range. This feature will often save you an extra post-processing step and come in handy when the only previewing device available is the built-in display.
Color Space
This parameter allows you to choose a working color space for the effect. When the “Linear” option is selected, the plug-in will convert all color values to a non-gamma-corrected format. When the “Uncorrected” option is selected, the color values supplied by the host will be used directly, without conversion. It may help to choose “Uncorrected” when dealing with smooth gradients or vector-art backgrounds, or if you have already applied gamma correction to your source media in a previous step of your workflow.