Adobe Photoshop CS6 Top 100 Simplified Tips and Tricks by Lynette Kent

CUSTOMIZE A GRADIENT to suit your design
You can use the Gradient tool to blend colors and fill
text with soft gradations of color, to fill backgrounds
or selections with a colored gradient, to apply
gradient layers, or to work with masks when making
composite images. As with the brushes, Photoshop
installs but does not automatically load a number of
different gradient color sets, which you can find by
opening the Gradient picker menu and loading these
using the same steps as in task #11.
You can also create your own custom gradient by
sampling colors from areas in your image or choosing
different colors altogether. You can add intermediate
colors and design a blend among multiple colors in
any order that you want. You can design gradients
that fade from any color to transparent, and you can
choose different styles for the gradient, such as
linear, radial, angled, reflected, or diamond. With the
Gradient Editor you can start with any existing
gradient, and then modify the colors, the color stops,
and other options in the dialog box before naming
and saving your custom gradient. The creative
variations are almost endless!
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1 Click the Gradient tool.
2 Click a gradient type in the
Options bar, a linear gradient in
this example.
3 Click in the gradient bar in the
Options bar.
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The Gradient Editor appears.
4 Click the left color stop under the
gradient bar to select it.
5 Click the Color thumbnail to
choose a new color.
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