How to Use Gradient Presets in Photoshop 2020

The gradient tool creates a gradual blend between multiple colors. So, let’s use the gradient tool now. The gradient tool is up here on the toolbar. You can also use the keyboard shortcut G and we’re gonna click on this triangle here and I was just gonna show you these are all the presets that were here in Photoshop. And now with Photoshop 2020 down here where all these triangles are, these are all new presets for the gradient tool. If I hold, if I hold command or control and click on this triangle and you will see it has expanded all of the different presets here now in Photoshop 2020. Down here at the bottom there are still the legacy gradients that are still available for you. It’s now the first option up here on the toolbar, just a linear gradient.

Linear gradient shades from the starting point to the ending point of a straight line so if I click and hold and drag all the way across this white background, there you can see the red to green gradient. Though anywhere I start and where I let go is where the gradient starts and ends. So, if I go a shorter distance, see the gradient splits off almost right there in the middle and you can go top to bottom, bottom top, anyway you want, create it diagonally. If I hold down the shift key, it draws a straight line so that’s the linear gradient. So, a couple of these options that I wanted to point out right now was this option up here, reverse. What that will do is reverse your colors. In other words, this preset here is from red to green. If I click on reverse it’s gonna go from green to red. The dither option, up here at the top will create a smoother blend without banding.

So, the radial gradient shades from the starting point to any point in a circular pattern. So, if I wanna start this gradient in the middle here and end right there, there is my circular pattern. Of course I can start and end my pattern anywhere. It is always gonna be a circle.

So, the next option is the angular gradient. It shades a counterclockwise sweep around the starting point so this is interesting. If I go all the way across diagonally that’s the way I would look.

So, the reflected gradient, it mirrors the same linear gradient on either side of the starting point. So, the shorter you make your line, the more that’s gonna be obvious.

Diamond gradient shades from the middle to the outer corners of the diet of a diamond pattern.

First we saw how to use the gradient tool just in creating our own gradients based on if we were choosing any of the gradient options at the top of the toolbar. The ones that you probably gonna use the most are the linear gradient and the radial gradient. So now, let’s look at the new presets that come with Photoshop 2020. If you notice up here the gradient has its own tab now and all these are brand new presets. Clicking on the control or command will expand all these different gradients. These are all the new ones and like I pointed out before, the legacy gradients are still there. Let’s apply gradients to layers.

So, if you wanna apply a gradient to a text layer, it is actually going to apply it as a layer effect. So, what we can do is get one of these presets and drag it on to the text layer and as you can see that applies the gradient but it is a gradient overlay. It is a layer style. That’s how gradients and text layers work.

You could also grab a gradient and drag it on to the canvas itself, that’ll change it. And with the layer selected, you could just click on any of these gradients and get your gradient applied. So now, we can apply a gradient to a shape layer as a shape fill. I’m going to come over here to the shape tab and grab some of these shapes here. Let’s see, let’s grab an elephant and we’ll make it a little bit bigger here. Go over to our gradients and so we have this shape fill and again you can just click, selecting any of the gradients and changing with each click. You can also drag on to the layer itself to apply that gradient or you can drag your gradient from the presets onto the canvas and apply your gradient that way.

Another way that you can work with the gradient presets is you can apply a gradient to a text layer or a shape layer as a fill layer. You can do that by holding the alt or option, clicking on your preset and dragging it over to your shape layer. And here it put a gradient fill above your shape layer so this is where you can get creative. In this case if I wanted to use say, blend if to bring the shape layer through and the gradient is applied around it and there are other ways you can use it if you just wanna again alt or option, drag it on to your lair and you can play with the opacity and different blend modes just to see what you know you can come up with. Let’s add some color to this photo here. I’m going to select this gradient preset here and click and drag it over to the canvas and now we have a gradient fill on top of that image. If you double-click on the gradient fill, you had the gradient fill properties here but what I need to do is reduce the opacity so that we can see what’s going on. So, on this gradient fill layer I’m going to reduce the opacity here just so we can see what’s going on. I’m going to double click on the gradient fill. In here we can adjust this angle here so that we can change kind of where this color’s coming from. I’m rotating that gradient so that the color is a little bit more on this right side here where there’s more light coming. And if you remember from earlier, we have some of the same options we had at the top of the toolbar like reverse and dither but let’s say, okay here. And now let’s change the blend mode to something like soft light and increase the opacity a little bit. But as you can see it warmed up her face a little bit and the whole photo. There’s before and there’s the after. So, that’s how you can use a gradient preset to add a little bit of color to a photo.

So, double-clicking on the gradient fill gives you the gradient fill properties. If you double click right here in the middle of the gradient this brings up the gradient editor. Here you can add points or add colors and you can shift the color any way you want. You can shift these colors and you can change the way they look and click okay and apply it to your gradient. So, gradient presets and the gradient tool is very powerful. There’s a lot of uses, a lot of creative uses. You can use them for backgrounds, for slides, for YouTube thumbnails, for a lot of things, you can add color to your photos. And so that’s what makes gradients very versatile. They’re easy to use and there’s a broad range of functionality in the gradient tools.