The Gradient Editor

The gradient editor is the panel where you create your custom or preset gradient. There are two ways to open up the gradient editor. Firstly, with the gradient tool selected you can right click on the canvas, and the editor will open up. Or you can left click on the gradient drop down menu on the options bar. The following gradient editor window will show up.

1. This is the list of default preset gradients. You can change the preview of the presets to: text, thumbnails or lists which displays the presets into a different format.
2. This creates a new preset gradient. The new preset will appear in the gradient preview.
3. This allows you to change the gradient from solid to noise. The noise gradient contains random colours from a specified range.
4. This is the colour sliders, notice there are two sets of sliders: the top two and the bottom two. The top two are the transparency sliders you can change opacities of each of the sliders. To create another transparency stopper you can click anywhere in between the two stoppers. The bottom two stoppers allow you to change the colours. Dragging the stoppers blends the colours together and clicking in between the two stoppers creates a new colour stopper.

Related
Gradient tool
Gradient styles

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The gradient tool part 2

This is a continuation from the gradient tool part 1. There are three types of gradients you can choose from which are: foreground to background, foreground to transparent, and customs. Below I will discuss and show examples of the types of gradients.


Foreground to background

This gradient type uses the current foreground and background colours for the gradient. So, the example below has a red foreground and a blue background.




Foreground to transparent

This gradient type blends the foreground colour with transparent pixels. In the example below I have used an image to show the transparent gradient. As you can see from the image only the top section has colour while the bottom section is transparent.




Custom

This gradient type is any colour you specify from gradient editor. You can also use transparency in the custom gradients.

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Gradient styles

There are actually five different gradient styles to choose from which are: Linear gradient, Radial gradient, Angle gradient, Reflected gradient, and Diamond gradient. The different gradient styles are shown in the diagram below accordingly:

Linear gradient

Starts from one point to another in a straight line.




Radial gradient

Starts from one point to another in a circular pattern. The first point is the centre of the gradient.




Angle gradient

Starts in an anti-clockwise around the starting point. The size of gradient you drag marks the direction of the colour.




Reflected gradient

This gives a gradient from both sides the starting point, so you should get three stripes of colour with two colours being the same.



Diamond gradient

This gives a diamond shaped gradient.

You can also choose the blending mode and opacity for each gradient. The reverse can be checked which reverses the order of the gradient. You can create a smoother blend by selecting the Dither. And finally set a transparent mask by checking the transparency option.

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The gradient tool

In this tutorial I will explain how to use the gradient tool in detail. To begin, a gradient is basically two colours blended seamlessly together. The gradients can contain a blend of one single colour, or a blend of multiple colours.

The gradient tool is located in the same place as the paint bucket tool. To use this tool you simply drag out a line representing the direction of the gradient. The first point defines where the first colour will end, and the second point defines where the second colour will begin. The example below shows the gradient from left to right. The number one shows the first point of the gradient.

(You can hold down the Shift key to constrain the gradient to right angles.)


The length of the gradient defines the width of the gradient. So, a small length will give you a small gradient and a long length will give you a long gradient. A long gradient gives a more blended look while a short gradient will give you a more defined look. Below is examples of a long and short gradient.

(Short gradient)

(Long gradient)

Checkout the gradient tool part 2

Related tutorials
Gradient Styles

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Gradients, Fills and the Eraser

In this section I will be discussing the gradients, fills and the eraser in detail. Firstly, a gradient is a colour which gradually changes into another colour. There are different kinds of gradient shapes available in Photoshop for example: linear, radial, angular, reflected and diamond. You can also have more than one colour for a gradient which will allow you to create complex gradients with different colours.

The eraser tool allows you to remove pixels like a brush, and the fill tool is basically a way of pouring a flat colour onto a selected area.

Below is a preview of Gradients, Fills and the Eraser tools:

The gradient tool

The paint bucket tool

The eraser tool

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