I am importing gradients from photoshop and overlaying them on my footage in FCE. I am obviously doing something wrong. Instead of the smooth gradient I see in photoshop, I get stair steppy blocky gradients in FCE. See attached png for a screenshot.

What am I doing wrong here? I create the grad in PS using the HD/HDTV 720p present, and save as working profile SRGB. Import into FCE, set overlay to "darken"..

What file format and settings did you use to save the file?

Try zooming in all the way in the viewer. I noticed that you are only at 50%. Sometimes things look different if you are zoomed out.

What file format and settings did you use to save the file?

Photoshop .PSD maximize compatibility turned on

Tiff w/transparencies turned on works for me a little better than PSD files.
You could also try a little blurring on the gradient before you export from PS.

Blurring the gradient will make it worse. Try adding a little bit of noise to the gradient in Photoshop. I would start with something like 3-5% uniform noise.

I doubt much of that will help. Noise would just... add noise.

First, see what it looks like at full resolution. Downsizing like that, on the fly, won't really be accurate, and could easily make something look blocky.

Second, it *might* be your color mode in FCP. See if you can increase color depth.

I've seen that frequently, though, with gradients, even within PS. There just aren't enough colors to display definition between the parts. You may be stuck with that, or it might just be how your monitor is displaying it. What mode are you running on that? Then again, doesn't seem to be an issue in PS, so probably not. However, you might want to try an export (to tape/dvd) and see what happens.

Increasing the bitrate would be a good idea, too, if possible.

Still happens at 100%

It does not happen if I generate the gradient in Final Cut, only when I use an imported photo. So I must be doing something wrong in photoshop. Hmm.

Matt,

FCE works best with either JPEG or PNG files. Don't use any preset from PS, simply create your image - layered or not - and output a standard JPEG file with a maximum horizontal res of 1200 pixels. If that doesn't work there's something else amiss.