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Take a look around you for a few seconds. Drink
in the colors; look how the subtle shadows blend on the edges of
your monitor, or in the recesses of the room. Light to dark,
blue to gray, or a sunset purple to orange to yellow horizon, we
live in a world cast with gradients. Gradual tone changes give
us depth perception and distinguish our world from that of
cartoons. Ok, that's a stretch, but think how boring life would
be in strait RGB.
Let's have some fun dabbling with gradients this
week. First let's take a look at our options in Photoshop, then
well do a little creative applying. To begin with, you select
the gradient tool from the toolbar.
With Photoshop 6 we are given a gradient Options
Bar, similar to other tool selections like type, paint, etc. In
the immediate left of the options bar we can select our gradient
colors. You will see a gradient loaded consisting of your fore
and background colors. By clicking the drop down arrow you will
see several more selections become available. These are presets
that shipped with the program, and actually a couple of these I
use regularly.
By clicking the small arrow on the gradients
drop down, you will see several options concerning the
gradients, including creating new gradients, saving those you've
created, or loading more that are available on your system.
The other aspect of gradients we will look at
are the types of fills we can apply. This is also located in the
options bar, just to the right of the gradient selection drop
down.
Here you can select a strait 2 tone linear,
radial, angled, reflected or diamond style fill pattern. The
linear is by far the most used, as you see it in advertising all
over the place. Also the radial gradient is the primary secret
for those realistic globes you may have seen on various
websites. Play around with all these wonderful tools, as each
renders interesting results when used creatively.
Now that we've covered a few basics, let's see
what the gradients can do for ...what else... TYPE! Can you tell
I used to be an English major?
Ok, to demonstrate the dynamics possible with
gradients we are going to start with a new image, black
background. Create a new layer and enter some large type (100
points or larger) using the type mask tool. Let's use a red
foreground, white background, and fill the type selection from
bottom to top. For this example I'm using a free font I found
online called 'Viper Squadron'. Here's where I'm at thus far:
You will note in the example I do not have the
selection active... I did this just so you could see the type
better. Your selection should be active still.
Create a new layer and place it beneath the type
layer. Select>Modify>Expand by 2, and fill the selection in the
empty layer with the gradient again, this time going from top to
bottom.
I'm not going to use the bevel options to dress
it up this week... instead, let's create a new layer beneath
those 2. Again, fill this from bottom to top.
Select>Modify>Contract by 2, then delete the selection.
Select>Inverse, and let's run a motion blur filter on this
layer.
Not too bad! I love this effect... it can look
like the text is moving to some, but to me it gives the illusion
of being on lined paper for some reason. Here's mine:
Ok, I couldn't just leave that fine looking type
effect alone. Overkill is a virtue, isn't it? After about 60
seconds of playing with the image, here's what I have NOW:
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