Simple Guide To Using The Gradient Tool In Photoshop For Beginners

Simple Guide To Using The Gradient Tool In Photoshop For Beginners – Live Gradients in Photoshop 2023 makes drawing and editing gradients easier than ever. This step-by-step tutorial will show you how to draw and edit gradients live, save gradient presets, apply gradients to your images, and more!

In this tutorial, I’ll show you 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

Direct gradients are a huge improvement over traditional Photoshop gradients for several reasons. The first is a new live gradient preview as you draw. Second, gradients are directly editable and non-destructive. And third, live gradients have new intuitive controls on the canvas to adjust color, size, gradient 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 gradients directly, then we’ll look at real-world examples of how you can use gradients with your photos.

You can get the latest version of Photoshop here. Or use the Creative Cloud Desktop app to make sure your copy of Photoshop is up to date.

Here are the steps to draw a gradient directly in Photoshop. Once we’ve drawn the gradient, I’ll show you how to edit the color, size, angle, opacity, and more.

In the Options panel, make sure the Gradient Mode (new option) is set to Gradient. Choosing classic gradient from the menu pulls the old gradient without the new live feature.

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The color swatch next to Gradient Mode shows the current gradient color. By default, gradients use your Foreground and Background colors (black and white).

I will show you how to choose your custom color after drawing the gradient. But Photoshop includes many gradient settings that we can choose from.

Open one of the themes (blues, purples, pinks, etc.), then click on the preset image.

Next to the gradient picker is the gradient style option. From left to right we have linear, radial, angular, reflected and diamond.

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Linear and Radial are the styles we use the most. Linear draws the gradient in a straight line, while Radial draws it outward in a circle. You can switch between styles using the left and right bracket keys ( [ and ] ) on your keyboard.

Still in the Options panel, leave the Invert option disabled if you don’t want to change the direction of the gradient and change the color. If necessary, you can always undo the gradient after drawing it.

Finally, set the Method option to Perceptual, which displays colors the way our eyes perceive colors. Linear is the most basic and shows color transitions in simple straight lines, while Classic corresponds to how gradients appear in previous versions of Photoshop.

So, to draw a gradient directly, click on the document to set the starting point, hold the mouse button and drag away from that point. Photoshop displays 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 as you drag.

In the Layers panel, notice that the gradient appears directly on the gradient fill layer itself, which keeps the gradient separate and intact.

A great feature of direct gradients is that they can still be edited even after they are drawn. And the easiest way to edit the gradient is with the new rent control. Here’s how to use it.

To adjust the scale (size or length) of the gradient using the controls on the canvas, click and drag one of the round colored dots at the end of the gradient.

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Or, when the color picker is open, you can click anywhere along the gradient to select that color.

Here I will select the purple color on the right side, which will temporarily match the two colors in the gradient.

Gradients are often used with very similar colors, with subtle transitions, as opposed to using colors on the opposite side of the color wheel.

To add a new color to the gradient, simply place the mouse cursor above or below the line where you want to add a new color.

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Or drag the diamond mark on both sides of the new color stop to change the middle place.

Then drag the stop color from the line to make it 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 edit using the controls on the screen and more.

Click the color swatch to open the gradient preset picker, rotate the color theme, then click the thumbnail to select a preset.

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I will reset my gradient to the same preset of the purple theme that I selected earlier in the Options bar.

Next we have the same style options (Linear, Radial, Angled, Reflected, and Diamond) that we saw in the Options panel, so you can change the gradient style after you draw.

To adjust the gradient angle, you can enter a specific value or click the arrow next to the value box and select a preset angle.

You can also click and drag on the word angle to adjust the value using the scrubby slider. While dragging the scrubby slider, hold down the Alt (Win) / Option (Mac) key to adjust the value in small increments. Or hold Shift to adjust it in larger increments.

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Use the Scale option to adjust the size or length of the gradient, either by entering a custom value, clicking the arrow next to the value box, and dragging the slider, or by clicking and dragging the word Scale to adjust using the scrubby slider. . .

Again, hold the Alt (Win) / Option (Mac) key while dragging with the scrubby slider to adjust the scale in smaller steps, or hold the Shift key for larger increments.

To change the direction of the gradient, which alternates colors on the left and right sides, check the Reverse option in the Properties panel.

And you can turn off Dither from the Properties panel, although I don’t recommend it if you want a brighter color band.

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Selecting Type in the Properties panel allows us to switch from a solid gradient (the traditional look) to a noise gradient.

Lower values ​​create smoother, softer variations with less contrast, as we can see in the preview bar below the rough option.

You can then use the three sliders to limit the range of colors in the sound depending on the color model you choose.

In most cases, you’ll want a traditional solid gradient, so I’ll change the type from Noise to Solid.

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This method allows you to change the way the colors are displayed in the gradient and the same thing we saw earlier in the options panel.

And notice that at 100 percent, most transitions between colors are closer to the center.

This creates a higher contrast gradient which is usually what we want and is great for creating high contrast black and white photos.

Sometimes it can be hard to tell the difference, but setting the smoothness at 100 percent usually seems best.

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Here we can edit the color in the same way before using the controls on the canvas.

If you’ve moved the midpoint between two color points and want to move back to the exact midpoint, click the diamond icon to select it, then set the Position value to 50 percent.

To add opacity to a gradient directly, we cannot use the canvas surface control. Instead, we need to use the transparency controls in the Properties panel. To see them, you need to rotate the transparency controls.

Below the preview bar there is an opacity stop at either end of the gradient (similar to the color stop).

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Notice that the left side now appears on the white canvas. But that’s because it’s transparent, and the white of the Background layer underneath is visible.

So I now have a gradient that goes from transparent on the left to purple on the right.

You can click below the opacity preview bar to add more opacity stops, drag to reposition them, set the opacity for each stop individually, or drag the diamond icon between two opacity stops to adjust the midpoint.

To remove the opaque stop, either drag it away from the preview bar until it disappears, or click to select it, then click the trash can icon.

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This resets the gradient angle to 90 degrees and extends the gradient across the canvas from top to bottom.

After saving the gradient, open the gradient preset picker in the options panel or at the top of the Properties panel.

For this part of the tutorial, I’ll use this image from Adobe Stock, and I’ll use a direct gradient to quickly change and enhance the color.

Then on the Options tab, I’ll click on the color swatch to open the gradient preset picker, and I’ll choose a preset from the Reds theme.

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Because we’ve only looked at linear gradients so far, right now