digital darkroom assignment #15

cletus · January 21, 2005

Assignment: Using the Gradient Tool

Photoshop's online help says "The Gradient tool creates a gradual blend between multiple colors." It doesn't sound like much, but the gradient tool is very powerful!

Try to find creative uses for the gradient tool and share your techniques and results with the rest of us.

Hints/Ideas:

Photoshop (and most other image editing programs) can create several different types of gradients: linear, radial, angle, reflected and diamond.
You can make gradients that not only change color, but change opacity as well.
In Photoshop, you can create gradients on layers and channels.

cletus · January 21, 2005

Samples
Gradient Sky
Original:

Gradient Sky:

I selected the church using the laso tool and then copied it onto a new layer. I created a new layer and placed it behind the church. I then created a radial really light blue to light blue gradient on the new layer.

Depth of Field
Original:

Shallow Depth of Field:

I placed a simple white to black linear gradient on a new channel:

I then ran the Lens Blur filter using the gradient channel as the Depth Map.

3-D Sphere

This guy is pretty much nothing but gradients inside selections!

wxwax · January 21, 2005

Ah yes, Gradient as Depth Map. Indeed, gradients inside selections. Old favorites, for sure.

:eek1 :eek1 :eek1 :eek1 :eek1

adrian_k · February 4, 2005

just naffing around with Peter Dumont's picture of Harlem.
Briefly in PS7:
duplicate BG
add filter of choice (this is Chalk & Charcoal)
Layer/add layer mask
Add gradient (two colours: B&W)
cheers
Adrian

cletus wrote:

Assignment: Using the Gradient Tool
Try to find creative uses for the gradient tool and share your techniques and results with the rest of us.

bham · February 22, 2005

cletus wrote:

Gradient Sky

Original:

Gradient Sky:

I selected the church using the laso tool and then copied it onto a new layer. I created a new layer and placed it behind the church. I then created a radial really light blue to light blue gradient on the new layer.

Depth of Field
Original:

Shallow Depth of Field:

I placed a simple white to black linear gradient on a new channel:

I then ran the Lens Blur filter using the gradient channel as the Depth Map.

3-D Sphere

This guy is pretty much nothing but gradients inside selections!

Could you do a little more step by step with putting a gradient in a channel and using the gradient channel as the depth map, because you totally lost me. I am using PS 7.

Until this challenge I had never really played around with using gradients. I have tried to use a few to blend 2 layers of same pic one color one bw and I think I must be doing it the hard way. A step by step would be awesome. Thanks

cletus · February 22, 2005

bham wrote:

Could you do a little more step by step with putting a gradient in a channel and using the gradient channel as the depth map, because you totally lost me. I am using PS 7.

Sorry 'bout that.

I've put together a step by step, but I'm pretty sure the Lens Blur filter that I use was added in PS CS. I don't think it's available in PS 7.

Anyhoo,

Here is the original image:

I wanted to use the Lens Blur filter to create a shallow depth of field effect with just a bit of foreground nice and sharp. The Lens Blur filter uses a "Depth Map" to determine how in or out of focus an area of the image will be. Photoshop gives us four choices for the source of the Depth Map: 1) None - all areas of the image will have the same amount of blur applied 2) A channel - the shade of gray in a particular area determines how in or out of focus that area will become 3) A layer mask - basically the same as a channel 4) Transparency - Uhhh, I think I understand how this would work, but I have no idea how to try and explain it

In my case I just want a simple foreground to background sharp to out of focus transition. Because of the nature of the picture I'm using, I can use a simple black to white (or white to black - the Lens Blur filter lets you invert your Depth Map before using it) gradient from top to the bottom of the image. So the first thing I do is create a new channel to put my gradient on. I create the new channel via the Create new channel button in the Channels palette:

Next I setup my gradient. I've decided to use a black to white, top to bottom gradient. By pressing D I can set the default foreground and background colors (white & black respectively)

and by pressing X I swap the foreground and background colors:

With a foreground of black and a background of white I can use the Foreground to Background gradient on my channel. I select the gradient I want by clicking on the Gradient tool in the tool palette (or by pressing G) and then opening the Gradient Picker from the option bar. In the Gradient picker I select the Foreground to Background gradient:

Also notice that I have linear gradient and Normal Mode selected from the option bar. With all that done I just did a click-drag from the top of the image to the bottom with the gradient tool:

Next it's time to run the Lens Blur filter (Filter > Blur > Lens Blur). When the Lens Blur dialog opens select Alpha 1 (the name of the channel we put the gradient on) as the Depth Map Source. By looking at the preview window we can tell if we need to invert the depth map or not. Once everything looks right, click on OK and we get our result:

In this case, I felt that too much of the foreground was out of focus. I undid the lens blur and redid the gradient for the Depth Map. This time instead of dragging the gradient all the way to the bottom of the image I stopped about 1/4 up. When I reran the Lens Blur filter I got a better looking result:

bham · February 22, 2005

Thanks when I upgrade to CS I will come back to this.

DavidTO · February 23, 2005

bham wrote:

Thanks when I upgrade to CS I will come back to this.

No need to wait. Just use Gaussian Blur instead of Lens Blur.

Mike Lane · March 2, 2005

Gradients come in very handy when doing neon...

What I noticed about neon is that the center of the neon light tube itself is nearly white while the edges of the tube are the color of the neon. So what I did was to lay down some type and go to layer styles and stroke. I chose gradient for the stroke and shape burst and then created a gradient that has a solid color on both sides with white in the middle. I fiddled around with putting the stroke on the inside, outside, and center and the size until it looked right. After that, I just needed to add a bit of inner and outer glow and I was done.

digital darkroom assignment #15

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