Step Wedge

The easy way to create a step wedge (I can do this in under a minute...)

1. Create a new photoshop document. I chose to create 8" wide by 1" tall. I chose 16 bit and 300 dpi for print resolution. (If you normally work in 8 bit, select 8 bit.) I chose 300 dpi as I usually print around that resolution. Color mode is RGB and background color is left white.
   
2. Select the gradient tool from the tool box. Edit the type of gradient. From the pull down select "foreground to background." To the left of the pull down tab select "linear gradient."
3. At the very bottom of the tool box are your foreground and background colors. Make sure they are white and black. My foreground is set to black. My background is set to white. With your gradient tool selected, place your cursor at the edge of the image, hold down shift, left click and hold, draft a line to the other edge of the image, release left click then shift. You should have a nice gradient across the image. The gradient tool is set to "foreground to background" and my foreground is black, background white. As I've dragged my cursor left to right, the gradient goes black to white. Get it?
   
4. Select Image>Adjustments>Posterize from the top menu. Enter "21" in the levels box and hit enter. You should now have a 21-step wedge. (You can select any number of levels you want, but 21 steps is works well for profiling and 8" will allow you to print many iterations of step wedges on a single sheet of letter sized paper.)
   
5. I save the filed in .PSD format. Do not convert, assign or embed any profiles

You'll notice that the steps are not equal in size. I'll discuss how to make a more "pretty" step wedge in another post.

Figure 1 - 21 Step Wedge