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Gradients are cool. That is incredibly
understated but true. When used wisely they can save you a lot
of time and struggle. They can do so many things, such as create
a sphere, a pipe or a subtle blending of two layers. Yet the
gradients that come with your Photoshop software are not always
everything you will need forever. So you'll need to know the
basics about making them for yourself.
Let's start by looking at where the gradient
tool is in PS6. Please take a look as well at the upper floating
options bar where you will find the different gradient options
and the window that gives you a preview of the gradient
currently selected. Real quick-like, let's go through the
gradient types from left to right.
1. Linear gradient
2. Radial gradient
3. Angle gradient
4. Reflected gradient
5. Diamond gradient
Personally I spend the majority of the time with
the first gradient, the linear type. The radial and reflected
gradient are also very useful to me much of the time. I have
used the others sparingly.
Let's focus on the linear gradient for now. The
linear gradient applies a color in gradation from either one
color to another, or from one color to transparency. But it is
not necessary to use only two colors or transparency and one
color. You can basically do anything you want. You can have
partial transparency and 20 colors if you so desire. Take a look
at the Gradient Editor window. To do that click on the color
preview window in the upper floating tool bar. I have put a red
arrow to point at it. Here you see a bunch of thumbnails at the
top of the window, which is a sample of all the gradients you
currently have to choose from. Down below you see the actual
editor which shows you the color of the gradient your are about
to edit. Let's take a few minutes to just play around with the
little sliders above and below the editor. They are actually
called stops, but for fun let's call them little sliders that
look like houses or fat arrows. Click on one and hold. You can
slide it back and forth. You can also slide the small diamonds
in between those sliders and that will affect the gradation
midpoint. Play around for a few moments before we go on.
All done? Ok. Now let's actually make our own
gradient. Look at those little sliders again that look like fat
arrows or houses (sort of). Click on one. Now go down to the
bottom of the window and where it says Color and there is a
preview window and drop down box, select foreground. Look
closely at the little slider again. See how it highlights the
square on the upper left? It should be black and the square in
the lower right should be gray. This is the same sort of layout
as your foreground and background colors in your tools palette.
If you select background in the color box, it will highlight the
lower right square.
What this means is that this gradient will use
the color currently defined by either your background or your
foreground color (whichever you have selected). So if you save
this gradient (which we will go over in a minute) you can decide
what color this part of your gradient simply by defining the
color in your tools palette. It will change whenever you do
this.
Let's say though, that you want the color to be
permanent and not ever change once you have saved it. To do
this, you can either go back to that color drop down box and
choose User Color, or you can simply double click on the slider.
This will bring up a color picker that you can select the color
from.
Now to add a slider and an additional color, you
simply click once right below the gradient color area. This will
add another slider. You can then double click on it and change
its color. You can repeat this as many times as you want. To
delete a slider, click and hold on it and drag it away from the
editor. Drop it and it will disappear. Or you can push the
Delete button at the bottom of the window. If the delete button
is not highlighted, you can't delete that slider.
The sliders on top of the gradient editor area
are also called stops. The affect the transparency of the
gradient. You can use these to determine where transparency lays
on your gradient. Say you wanted to have a gradient go from
white to transparent and then back to white, you use these to do
that. When you click on one of these sliders, you can change the
opacity down below in the opacity drop down box to any
percentage you like. Zero percent is completely transparent, and
100% is completely opaque (go figure).
Now this is my favorite part. To save the
gradient you just made, you click once in an empty space of the
thumbnails area. You can name it whatever you want. If you want
to change the name, double-click on the thumbnail of the
gradient you want to change. Very user friendly!
To give you a little example, I have included a
shot of the gradient editor with one of my custom gradients. You
can see there are several colors and sliders (color stops)
there. I have messed with the little diamonds (midpoints) in
between the sliders by moving them back and forth to further
customize the gradation between the colors.
One last thing is that while you have one of
these diamonds (midpoints) selected, the location window down
below becomes active and you see a percentage there. Play around
with that a little. I have also included a simple sphere shape
made with the radial gradient tool and a weird pipe thingy that
I made with the linear gradient tool and a custom linear
gradient I concocted. Gradients are cool.
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