Gradient with stop causes thicker appearance at the stop, not smooth

Question

When using a stop in my gradient, it doesn't smoothly transition from the solid color before the stop.

It has a thicker appearance. See the picture below.

Notice the visibly darker line in the middle, where the actual gradient starts.

How do I make this smooth, like it should?

The white also seems to stop rather abruptly, even though the bound is at 100%.

This occurs in Photoshop, as well as on the web, using CSS3 gradients.

Is this just my screen?

The color I'm using is #1fa2ae

Update: when I hover with a color detector, the gradient seems fine.

Is this some kind of optical color illusion?

Answer 1

Try enabling the Dither option in the gradient effect menu. The bar may still be apparent, as I believe it is a bit of an optical illusion, but dithering will smooth out the entire gradient and help to hide the banding at least a little bit.

Left is the picture you posted, right is my gradient with dithering. The appearance of a dark line is still there, but I think that's probably as good as it gets. I've yet to figure out a fool-proof solution to this, myself.