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For this tutorial you will need: |
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Let's get started! |
| Applying a Gradient (just below) Loading More Gradients Editing Gradients Using a Gradient Map |
| Applying a Gradient |
| 1. Open new white canvas |
Reference screenshot 1. Gradient tool in toolbar 2. pick gradient style (the arrow is pointing to linear which you will use most often 3. Click on the little arrow to get the gradient thumbnails and options up 4. Click on this little arrow to get the option menu up 5. Click to choose Preset Manager 6. Click to load gradients without going into Preset Manager 7. Click to load the gradients that come with Photoshop but not loaded yet "New Gradient" at top of menu is to create your own gradient |
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2.The
simplest way Click on the gradient tool. In Photoshop it's behind the paint bucket, in PSE it's on the toolbar on it's own.  In the toolbar, pick a gradient by clicking on the dropdown menu arrow next to the gradient pictured; set the style (usually linear); make sure Dither is checked, and leave everything else at default. If you want transparency in your gradient, check that box. And Reverse reverses the direction of the gradient and sometimes makes it appear to have more ridges. Check that it you want it. (Dither, transparency and reverse are at the end of the toolbar past the Opacity window Not shown in this screenshot or it would be too large for this page) Make sure that mode is normal and Opacity is 100% or you may draw the gradient and see nothing. I know because I did it, scratching my head and wondering where the darn gradient went. LOL  |
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3.
In your canvas, left click and holding the mouse button down,
draw a line either up and down, upper left to bottom right, or bottom left to upper right or anything in between to vary the angle of the gradient. This gradient automatically makes a new layer. Upper left to bottom right  Bottom left to upper right  Straight across left to right  Staight down  To get more repeats than what are in the gradient, I select about 1/2 of the canvas (or less, play with it to change the number of repeats). With the selection still active, draw your gradient inside of it, then go to selections>Inverse and do it again in the new selection. Do this as often as needed to get the gradient to how you want it. Select>Deselect and you should have the gradient style you want. If some are the edges don't exactly match, use the paintbrush to match them up or use the blur brush to soften the edges. Back to top |
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Alternate method - the add a new fill layer method This works for both Photoshop and Photoshop Elements 1. In Photoshop click on the dropdown arrow next to the little icon at the bottom that looks like a circle, half black and half white, 4th from the left - it's the Create a new fill or adjustment layer button. The number 2 icon shown. In the dropdown menu, pick Gradient. In Photoshop before version CS2, I believe it was above the layers, not below. 
In PSE, it's above the layers and you can pick both Gradient and Gradient Map from the dropdown menu. Instructions for using the Gradient Map are below  You will get a Gradient Fill window come up next. This is where it's better than the simple method above. In this window you can adjust the angle and scale precisely.  In both programs, you can also access the same fill window by going to Layer>New Fill Layer>Gradient If you don't have enough ridges or colors going across you can either do the selection method as outlined above in the Simple method or use the blend mode and set it to multiply or use Reverse in the Gradient fill window. Sometimes changing the scale to a smaller number will help. See what works best for you. You can also check out the Gradient Mapping below. Scroll a bit down to get to it. Back to top |
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Alternate Method -
the Gradient Overlay Method This only works in Photoshop, there is no Gradient Overlay layer style in Photoshop Elements At least nowhere that I can find and nowhere mentioned at all the websites I researched. The Gradient Overlay can be accessed two ways One way is to right click on the background layer, click on duplicate and while in that layer, click on the tiny icon in the layer palette at the bottom (I have CS2, I think in previous versions these icons were at the top of the layer palette), second from left, with a tiny f on it, number 1 icon below. In the dropdown menu, click on gradient overlay. The second way is to go to Layer>Layer Styles>Gradient Overlay You will end up at this window, the layer styles window, with Gradient Overlay highlighted  As you can see, you end up with similar options to the Gradient Fill window. Back to top |
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Using the Gradient
overlay you are able to adjust only the opacity in the layer
palette In the Gradient Layer window however, you can adjust everything but fill percentage. If you use New Fill Layer>Gradient, you can adjust the Opacity, Fill and Blend modes in the layer palette. 3 is Blend Mode, 4 is Opacity percentage, and 5 is Fill percentage Fill adjustment is not in the PSE layer palette, just blend mode and opacity Using the Layer Styles>Gradient overlay, you get the layer styles window to adjust the gradient; if you use the New Fill Layer, you get up the Gradient Fill window. Back to top |
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Here are some
examples using the simple draw a line method (picture on the
left) and also the New Fill Layer method, no matter how you got to it (picture on the right). Every one was drawn from the upper left to the bottom right in the simple draw method and for the new fill layer method, angle was set at 45, scale at 100%, dither and align with layer are checked. The linear style looked the same both ways. Angle 
 Diamond 
 Radial 
 Reflected 
 Back to top |
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Section 2 - Loading more gradients PS and PSE open with very few gradients by default, but the program comes with more that you can add. If you are looking for more sites offering free Photoshop gradients, check my Great Beginnings page. |
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Loading gradients
that come with the program Click on the gradient tool In the toolbar, click on the dropdown arrow next to the picture (#3) of the gradient to get the gradient window to drop down. You will see a tiny arrow in the upper right corner of the gradient window (#4) Click on that to bring up the next menu. The other gradients that come with Photoshop are listed at the bottom of this menu window (#7). Just click on them one at a time to load. A little window will come up asking whether to replace or append. Pick append, this will add them to the gradients you already have in there. If you pick replace, all of the gradients you have added will be replaced with that one set, but they are not lost, you can always load them this same way. You can load in the same way from the Preset Manager (see below); but this is the easiest. Click on Preset Manager (you can do this by clicking on Load as well) if you are adding gradients you collected from the web, |
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Loading gradients
collected on the web Click on the gradient tool In the toolbar, click on the dropdown arrow next to the picture (#3) of the gradient to get the gradient window to drop down. You will see a tiny arrow in the upper right corner of the gradient window (#4) Click on that to bring up the next menu. From here, you can either load the new presets by picking Load (#6) or by picking the Preset Manager (#5)  Just picking Load is the simplest. A window will come up for you to browse to the place where you have your gradients. Just browse there and pick them, the new set will be added to the bottom of your gradient thumbnails. In the Preset Manager you also pick the Load button and add the same way. Whenever I download from the web, I put them in a folder that's not in the Photoshop program folder (I do the same with all of my other graphic programs). If you have to uninstall Photoshop/Photoshop Elements or if it goes nuts, you won't lose all of the extra presets, etc that you have saved. Back to top |
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Saving the
gradient sets Once you have all loaded that you want, I would save the set. Just click on the very last gradient thumbnail, hold down shift and scroll up and click on the very first one. This will select them all. You will see the save set button now usable. Click on that, and save the set with whatever name you like. If you ever lose the settings in PS, you can just load this set just like you did the others and they will all be there. Alternately, you can save your gradients in smaller sets if you like, as many as you want to. Do this the same way only select just the gradients you want added to the set. Back to top |
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Editing the gradients - to edit
pre-existing gradients or make your own I haven't done this much so can't tell you a lot, but you can bring up the Gradient Editor either by double clicking on the gradient color box in the toolbar or from the flyout menu from the gradient thumbnail window, you can click on new gradient to get up the Gradient Editor. In PSE, you can get to it also by clicking the Edit button next to the gradient color window in the toolbar.  You pick a gradient that is close to what you want and you can slide around the stops at the bottom of the window or add new ones by clicking in an empty spot A new icon (the crayon looking things at the bottom) will appear; just click on it to pick a new color. You can save it from this window and also add it to the existing thumbnails. Don't forget to click on the Load button to get it to appear in the thumbnails, then save it by clicking on new. Back to top |
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Using the Gradient Map You can use Gradient mapping to either make the grad appear more ridged or make it appear more smooth. Apply gradient of choice to canvas. If you don't want the ridges in the original gradient to affect the outcome, pick one that doesn't have very deep ridges. Go to Layer>Adjustment layer>Gradient Map. In the next box pick color none, Mode of soft Light instead of normal, and turn the opacity down to 50%. click ok, Use previous layer to create clipping mask is if you have something smaller in the layer below, such as an object, the gradient will only apply to that object and not all the way across.  In the next box pick a gradient map you like and if it looks ok to you, click ok. You can also click Reverse here to get a different effect. Click OK.  After you've applied the gradient map, and if you're still not happy with the result, you can play with the blend mode and opacity in the layer palette to fine-tune it till it looks best for you. You can get quite a difference in the number and size of the ridges and changes of color by applying a blend mode (#3) such as multiply and changing the opacity (#4) or fill percentage (#5). Before gradient mapping  After gradient mapping with the blend mode of Soft Light  Playing with Blend mode After gradient mapping and changing blend mode to Hue  After gradient mapping and changing blend mode to Multiply  Each of these results were obtained using the same gradient and the same gradient map and just playing with the blend modes in the layer palette (see #3 in the screenshot of the layer palette above). Back to top |
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I have instructed
with what I know and figured out about these two programs. If you know of any better ways, please contact me. I'd love to find out better methods of applying gradients in these two programs. I find getting repeats in the gradients and also getting deeper ridges instead of merely bands of color, not as easy as in Paint Shop Pro, or PhotoImpact. |
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If
you have any questions or suggestions, click on the email button
below to contact me. |
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These tutorials are all my own creations. |
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