Adjusting the number of steps in a blend

In this movie I'll show you how to change the number of steps between blended path outlines,…and when and why you might want to do so.…I'll start off by pressing and holding the Ctrl and Spacebar keys, that's Command and…Spacebar on the Mac, in order to get the Zoom tool, and then I'll marquee around this approximate area here.…And if you look closely inside of either the green gradient or the reddish one above it,…then you may be able to make out a series of striations, which are the steps themselves.…And when you're able to see the steps like this, it's called stair stepping.…

Now, what you want of course is not to see those steps as much as possible, so that you're…simulating the effect of a smooth color transition.…The thing is, the stair stepping you see on screen isn't necessarily indicative of the…stair stepping you might get when you print the document.…Ostensibly, every gradient, whether created with Gradient tool or using blending, should…look nice and smooth for output.…However, what I'm going to do, just so you can see how these steps work, I'm going to…