Creating A Simple Gradient Background In Photoshop For Beginners – Direct Gradient in Photoshop 2023 makes drawing and editing gradients easier than ever. This step-by-step tutorial will show you how to draw and edit a live gradient, save a custom gradient preset, apply a gradient to your image, and more!
In this tutorial, I’ll show you how easy it is to draw and edit gradients using Live Gradients in Photoshop 2023.
Creating A Simple Gradient Background In Photoshop For Beginners
Direct Gradient is a huge improvement over Photoshop’s traditional gradients for several reasons. The first is a new live preview for gradients as we draw. Second, direct gradients are editable and non-destructive. Third, powerful gradients; It includes new and intuitive canvas controls to adjust colors, size, tilt angle and more. So let’s see how they work.
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I’ll start by showing you everything you need to know to draw and edit a live gradient, and then we’ll look at a real-world example of how you can use a gradient with your photo.
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Here are the steps to draw a direct gradient in Photoshop. After drawing the gradient, I’ll show you how to edit the colors, scale, angle, opacity, and more.
In the Options bar, make sure the Gradient Mode (New option) is set to Gradient. Selecting Classic Gradient from the menu will draw the old gradient without any of the new live features.
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The swatch next to Gradient Mode shows the available gradient colors. By default, the gradient uses your foreground and background colors (black and white).
After you’ve drawn the gradient, I’ll show you how to choose your own custom colors. However, Photoshop has plenty of gradient presets that we can choose from.
Rotate any of the themes (blues, purples, pinks, etc.) to open, then click a preset thumbnail.
Next to the gradient picker are the gradient style options. From left to right are Linear, Radial, Angle, Reflected and Diamond.
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Linear and Radial are the styles we use the most. Linear draws the slope in a straight line, while radial draws the slope outward in a circle. You can switch between styles on your keyboard using the left and right bracket keys ( [ and ] ).
If you don’t want to reverse the direction of the gradient and change the colors, leave the Invert option unchecked while in the Options bar. If necessary, you can reverse the gradient at any time after drawing it.
Finally, set the Mode option to Perceptual, which displays colors that match how our eyes perceive colors. Linear is more basic and displays color gradients in a simple straight line, but matches how gradients looked in previous versions of Classic Photoshop.
To draw your direct gradient, click on the document to set a starting point, hold down your mouse button, and drag from there. Photoshop shows a live preview of the gradient as you draw.
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To draw a gradient in a straight horizontal or vertical line, hold down the Shift key on your keyboard while dragging.
Note that the direct gradient appears in its own gradient fill layer in the Layers panel, keeping the gradient separate and harmless.
The great thing about direct gradients is that we can edit them even after we’ve drawn them. The easiest way to modify the gradient is through the controls on the new canvas. Here’s how to use them.
Click and drag one of the circular color stops on either side of the gradient to adjust the amount (size or length) of the gradient using the controls on the canvas.
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Or, if you open the color picker, you can click anywhere on the gradient to sample that color.
Here I’m sampling the purple on the right, which temporarily matches the two colors in the gradient.
Gradients generally work better with colors that are similar and have more subtle transitions than using colors on opposite sides of the color wheel.
To add a new color to the gradient, place your mouse cursor above or below where you want to add the new color.
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Or drag the diamond icons on either side of the new color stop to change the midpoint positions.
Then drag the color stop until it disappears or press the Delete key on your keyboard.
Another way to edit a direct gradient in Photoshop is from the Properties panel. Here we find the same options and more that can be modified using the controls on the canvas.
Click the swatch to open the gradient preset picker, rotate the color theme to open it, and click the thumbnail to select a preset.
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I reset my gradient to the same preset as the purples theme I selected earlier in the options bar.
Next, the options bar has the same style options we saw (Linear, Radial, Angle, Reflected, and Diamond) so you can change your gradient style after drawing it.
To adjust the tilt angle, you can either enter a specific value or click the arrow next to the value box and select a preset angle.
Click and drag the word Angle to adjust the value using the slider. Hold Alt (Win) / Option (Mac) while dragging the slider to adjust the value in small increments. Or hold Shift to adjust in larger increments.
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Use the Scale option to adjust the size or length of the gradient by entering a specific value, click the arrow next to the value box and drag the slider, or click and drag the word Scale to adjust using the slider. .
Hold down Alt (Win) / Option (Mac) while dragging the slider to adjust the size in small increments, or Shift for larger increments.
Check the Invert option in the Properties panel to reverse the direction of the gradient, which will change the colors on the left and right.
You can disable dithering in the Properties panel, although we don’t recommend it unless you want the color bars to be more noticeable.
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The Type option in the Properties panel allows you to switch from a solid gradient (a more traditional look) to a noise gradient.
Lower values create smoother, softer variations with less contrast, which we see in the preview bar below the Roughness option.
You can use three sliders to control the color range in the noise depending on the color model you choose.
Most likely you want a traditional flat gradient, so I’ll change the Type from Noise to Flat.
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This method allows you to change the way the colors are displayed in the gradient and similar to what you saw earlier in the options bar.
Note that at 100 percent, most of the transition between colors occurs in the middle.
This is usually what we want and creates a high contrast gradient, which is great for creating a high contrast black and white photo.
Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference, but leaving the sensitivity at 100 percent is usually the best option.
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Here you can edit the colors as you did before using the controls on the canvas.
If you want to move the midpoint between the two color stops and reset it to the exact midpoint, click the diamond icon to select it, then set the Position value to 50 percent.
You cannot use controls on the canvas to add transparency to a direct gradient. Instead we should use the Opacity controls in the Properties panel. You may need to rotate it to see the opacity controls.
Below the preview bar is an opacity stop (like a color stop) at each end of the gradient.
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Notice that the left side now appears white on the canvas. But it is transparent and the white is visible through the background layer below.
Now I have a gradient that goes from transparent on the left to purple on the right.
To add more opacity stops, click and drag below the opacity preview bar to reposition them, adjust the opacity for each stop individually, or drag the diamond icon between two opacity stops to adjust the midpoint.
To remove the opacity stop, drag it out of the preview bar until it disappears, or click to select it and then click the trash can icon.
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This resets the gradient angle to 90 degrees and extends the gradient from top to bottom on the canvas.
Once the gradient is saved, open the Gradient Preset Selector in the Options bar or at the top of the Properties panel.
In this part of the tutorial I will use this image from Adobe Stock and direct gradients to quickly change and enhance colors.
Then in the options bar, I click the swatch to open the gradient preset picker and select a preset from the reds theme.
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