Simple Guide To Using The Gradient Tool In Photoshop For Beginners – Live Gradients in Photoshop 2023 make drawing and editing gradients easier than ever. This step-by-step tutorial shows you how to draw and edit live gradients, save custom gradient presets, add gradients to your photos, and more!
In this tutorial, I show how easy it is to draw and edit gradients using Live Gradients in Photoshop 2023.
Simple Guide To Using The Gradient Tool In Photoshop For Beginners
Live gradients are a huge improvement over Photoshop’s traditional gradients for several reasons. The first is a new live view of Milan as we draw it. Second, gradients are directly editable and non-destructive. And third, Live Gradients includes new, intuitive controls for adjusting gradient color, size, angle, and more. So, let’s see how it works.
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I’ll start by showing you everything you need to know to draw and edit live gradients, then we’ll look at real-world examples of how you can add gradients to your photos. can use
You can get the latest version of Photoshop here. Or use the Creative Cloud desktop app to make sure your copy of Photoshop is complete.
Here’s a step-by-step guide to drawing gradients in Photoshop. Once we’ve drawn the gradient, I’ll show you how to edit the color, size, dimension, 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 new life properties.
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The color switch next to Gradient mode shows the current gradient color. By default, gradients use foreground and background colors (black and white).
I’ll show you how to choose a custom color when we draw a gradient. But Photoshop includes many gradient presets that we can choose from.
Open any theme (blues, purples, pinks, and more), then click the set’s thumbnail.
Next to the gradient selector is the gradient style selector. From left to right, we have Linear, Radial, Angle, Reflected and Diamond.
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Linear and radial are the types we use most often. Linear draws gradients in straight lines while radial draws them outwards in circles. You can use the left and right arrow keys ( [ and ] ) to navigate through the form from your keyboard.
Still in the Options option, if you want to reverse the direction of the gradient and change its color, leave the opposite option unchecked. You can always invert the gradient after drawing it if needed.
Finally, leave the option set to Perceptual, which displays colors in a way that matches the way our eyes perceive colors. Linear is the most basic and shows color changes in straight lines, while Classic matches the gradient shape in previous versions of Photoshop.
Then, to draw a live gradient, simply click on the document to set a starting point, hold down the mouse button and drag it from there. Photoshop displays a live preview of the gradient as you draw it.
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To draw a gradient in a horizontal or vertical line, hold down the Shift key on your keyboard as you drag.
In the Layers panel, notice that the gradient appears immediately on its gradient fill layer and separates and maintains the gradient.
The best part about live gradients is that they remain editable even as we draw them. The easiest way to modify the gradient is to use the New Layer control. Here’s how to use it.
To change the size (width or height) of the gradient using the slider controls, click and drag one of the colored circles at each end of the gradient.
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Or, with the color picker open, you can click anywhere along the gradient to see the color.
Here, I see purple on the right, causing the two colors to temporarily fall into a gradient.
Rather than using colors on opposite sides of the color wheel, gradients often work best with similar colors and smooth transitions.
To add a new color to the gradient, place your mouse cursor above or below the line where you want to add the new color.
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Or drag the diamond icon on either side of the new color stop to change the center point.
Then, drag the color stops along the line until they disappear, or press the Delete key on your keyboard.
Another way to edit gradients directly in Photoshop is from the Properties panel. Here you will find the same options that we can modify using the controls on the canvas as well as other options.
Click the color swatch to open the gradient preset selector, rotate the color theme and click the thumbnail to select a preset.
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I’m going to reset my gradient to the same set of purple themes that I selected earlier in the options bar.
Again we have the same style options (linear, radial, angle, reflected, and diamond) that we found in the options bar, so you can change the style of the gradient as you draw it.
To change the gradient angle, you can enter a value, or click the arrow next to the Value box and select a set angle.
You can click and drag the angle text to adjust its value using the scrubby slider. While dragging the scrubby slider, hold down the Alt (Win) / Option (Mac) key to decrease the value. Or hold Shift to adjust incrementally.
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Use the Scale option to adjust the size or length of the gradient, either by entering a value, clicking the arrow next to the Value box and dragging the slider, or adjusting it by clicking the word Scale and dragging the slider scrubby. Use the .
Hold down the Alt (Win)/Option (Mac) key while dragging along the scrubby slider to zoom in and out, or press the Shift key for greater zoom.
To reverse the direction of the gradient, check the Reverse option in the Properties panel, which swaps the colors on the left and right sides.
And you can turn off Dither from the Properties panel, though I wouldn’t recommend it unless you want colors to appear better.
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The options in the Properties panel let us change from a solid gradient (the more traditional look) to a noise filter.
Low values create a soft, smooth texture with little contrast, as we see in the preview under the Roughness option.
You can use three sliders to limit the range of colors in the noise based on the color range you select.
In most cases, you want a traditional solid gradient, so I’d change the style from Noise back to Solid.
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Patterns let you change how colors and gradients are displayed, and this is what we saw earlier in the options bar.
And notice that at 100 percent, most transitions between colors occur near the center.
It produces high-quality gradients, which we usually need, and is perfect for creating high-quality black and white images.
Sometimes it’s hard to see the difference, but leaving Fineness at 100 percent is usually fine.
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Here, we can edit the colors just like we did before using the controls on the canvas.
If you moved the center between two color stops and want to reset it to the center, click the diamond icon to select it, and set the value to 50 percent.
To add transparency to a live gradient, we cannot use the Overlay control. Instead we need to use the Opacity control in the Properties panel. You can navigate to open the room manager to view it.
Below the preview bar is a spot on the edge of the gradient (like a color stop).
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Notice that the left side is now white on the canvas. And that’s because it appears transparent, and the white color of the background layer underneath is clearly visible.
So now I have a gradient that goes from purple on the left to purple on the right.
You can add more opacity stops by clicking at the bottom of the opacity control panel, dragging to adjust them, setting the distance for each stop separately, or clicking the diamond icon to adjust the center. Can drag between opacity stops.
To remove an opacity stop, drag it out of the viewbar until it disappears, or click to select it and click the brush icon.
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This rotates the gradient angle by 90 degrees and spreads the gradient from the top to the bottom of the canvas.
After the gradient is saved, open the Gradient Preset selector, either in the Options bar or in the Properties panel.
For this part of the tutorial, I’ll be using this image from Adobe Stock, and I’ll be using Live Gradients to quickly change and enhance colors.
Then in the options bar, I’ll click on the color switch to open the gradient preset selector and I’ll choose a preset from the red theme.
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Since we’ve covered linear gradients so far, this time I’ll cover them.
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