Photoshop 6 for Windows Bible- P10 pps

Click the preview to open the Gradient Editor dialog box,discussed in the upcoming section “Creating custom gradations.” Figure 6-9: The Options bar gives you quick access to all the gra

✦ Gradient preview: The selected gradient appears in the gradient preview,

labeled in Figure 6-9 Click the preview to open the Gradient Editor dialog box,discussed in the upcoming section “Creating custom gradations.”

Figure 6-9: The Options bar gives you quick access to all the gradient tool options.

✦ Gradient drop-down palette: Click the triangle adjacent to the preview to

dis-play the Gradient palette, which contains icons representing gradients in thecurrent gradient presets Click the icon for the gradient you want

In the default gradient preset, the first two gradations are dependent on thecurrent foreground and background colors The others contain specific colorsbearing no relationship to the colors in the toolbox

You load gradient presets using the same techniques that I describe in detail

in the brush preset discussion in Chapter 5 Here’s a brief recap:

• Click the triangle near the top of the drop-down palette to display thepalette menu The Photoshop collection of presets and any presets thatyou define appear at the bottom of the palette menu Click a preset name

to use the preset instead of the current preset or append the new preset

to the current one

• To append a preset from disk — such as when a coworker gives you apreset file — choose Load Gradients from the palette menu or click Load

in the Preset Manager dialog box If you want to replace the current set instead, choose Replace Gradients from the palette menu or clickReplace in the dialog box To return to the default gradients, chooseReset Gradients from the palette menu, either from the Options barpalette or the one in the Preset Manager dialog box

pre-Note

Gradient style icons

Click for menuClick to display palette

Gradient preview

You can edit a gradient and perform the aforementioned preset juggling actsfrom within the Gradient Editor dialog box, too The upcoming section

“Creating custom gradations” covers this dialog box

✦ Gradient style: Click an icon to select the gradient style — a function that you

formerly accomplished by choosing a specific gradient tool The next sectionexplains these five styles

✦ Mode and Opacity: These options work as they do for the paint and edit

tools, the Fill command, and every other tool or command that offers them

as options Select a different brush mode to change how colors are applied;lower the Opacity value to make a gradation translucent Remember that youcan change the Opacity value by pressing number keys as well as by usingthe Opacity control on the Options bar Press 0 for 100 percent opacity, 9 for

90 percent, and so on

✦ Reverse: When active, this simple check box begins the gradation with the

background color and ends it with the foreground color Use this option whenyou want to start a radial or other style of gradation with white, but you want

to keep the foreground and background colors set to their defaults

✦ Dither: In the old days, Photoshop drew its gradients one band at a time Each

band was filled with an incrementally different shade of color The potentialresult was banding, in which you could clearly distinguish the transitionbetween two or more bands of color The Dither check box helps to eliminatethis problem by mixing up the pixels between bands (much as Photoshopdithers pixels when converting a grayscale image to black and white) Youshould leave this option turned on unless you want to use banding to create

a special effect

✦ Transparency: You can specify different levels of opacity throughout a

grada-tion For example, the Transparent Stripes effect (available from the Gradientpalette when the Default Gradients preset is loaded) lays down a series ofalternately black and transparent stripes But you needn’t use this trans-parency information If you prefer to apply a series of black and white stripesinstead, you can make all portions of the gradation equally opaque by turningoff the Transparency check box

For example, in Figure 6-10, I applied Transparent Stripes as a radial gradation

in two separate swipes, at top and bottom Both times, I changed the Opacitysetting to 50 percent, so the dog and the hydrant would never be obscured.(The Opacity setting works independently of the gradation’s built-in trans-parency, providing you with additional flexibility.) In the top gradation, theTransparency check box is on, so the white stripes are completely transpar-ent In the bottom gradation, Transparency is turned off, so the white stripesbecome 50 percent opaque (as prescribed by the Opacity setting)

Tip

Figure 6-10: With the Opacity value set to 50 percent, I applied the

Transparent Stripes gradation with Transparency on (top) and off (bottom)

When Transparency is off, the white stripes obscure the view of the

underlying image

Gradient styles

In Photoshop 5, you selected different gradient tools to create specific styles of

gra-dations Now the toolbox contains just one gradient tool, and you select the

gradi-ent style by clicking the gradigradi-ent style icons on the Options bar (refer back to

Figure 6-9) Note that you can’t use the old Shift+G shortcut for switching styles

Nor can you switch styles by Alt-clicking on the gradient tool icon in the toolbox

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Photoshop 6

Transparency on

Transparency off

Illustrated in Figure 6-11, the five styles are as follows:

✦ Linear: A linear gradation progresses in bands of color in a straight line

between the beginning and end of your drag The top two examples in Figure6-11 show linear gradations created from black to white, and from white toblack The point labeled B marks the beginning of the drag; E marks the end

✦ Radial: A radial gradation progresses outward from a central point in

concen-tric circles, as in the second row of examples in Figure 6-11 The point at whichyou begin dragging defines the center of the gradation, and the point at whichyou release defines the outermost circle This means the first color in the gra-dation appears in the center of the fill So to create the gradation on the rightside of Figure 6-11, you must set the foreground color to white and the back-ground color to black (or select the Reverse check box on the Options bar)

✦ Angle: The angle gradient tool creates a fountain of colors flowing in a

coun-terclockwise direction with respect to your drag, as demonstrated by the middle two examples of Figure 6-11 This type of gradient is known more com-

monly as a conical gradation, because it looks like the bird’s eye view of the

top of a cone

Of course, a real cone doesn’t have the sharp edge between black and whitethat you see in Photoshop’s angle gradient To eliminate this edge, create acustom gradation from black to white to black again, as I explain in the

“Adjusting colors in a solid gradation” section later in this chapter (Take apeek at Figure 6-16 later in this chapter if you’re not sure what I’m talkingabout.)

✦ Reflected: Drag with the fourth gradient tool to create a linear gradation that

reflects back on itself Photoshop positions the foreground color at the ning of your drag and the background color at the end, as when using the lin-ear gradient tool But it also repeats the gradient in the opposite direction ofyour drag, as demonstrated in Figure 6-10 It’s great for creating natural shad-ows or highlights that fade in two directions

begin-✦ Diamond: The last gradient tool creates a series of concentric diamonds (if

you drag at a 90-degree angle) or squares (if you drag at a 45-degree angle, as

in Figure 6-11) Otherwise, it works exactly like the radial gradient tool

Figure 6-11: Examples of each of the five gradient styles created

using the default foreground and background colors (left column)

and with the foreground and background colors reversed (right

column) B marks the beginning of the drag; E marks the end

Black to white White to black

Creating custom gradations

If you’re accustomed to editing gradients in earlier versions of Photoshop, youprobably searched high and low for the key to opening the Gradient Editor dialogbox, shown in Figure 6-12 Where’s the Edit button that you clicked to open the dia-log box in Version 5? In the Gradient palette menu? On the Options bar? Nope, andnope The secret passageway to the dialog box — as you already know if you readthe “Gradient options” section earlier in this chapter — is the color preview thatappears at the left end of the Options bar If you click the preview, you display theGradient Editor dialog box; if you click the neighboring triangle, you display theGradient palette, as shown earlier, in Figure 6-9

Figure 6-12: Click the gradient preview on the Options bar to

display the Gradient Editor dialog box, which enables you to design custom gradations

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Photoshop 6

The Gradient Editor offers a new look as well as some new functions in Version 6.

Upcoming sections cover these functions in detail, but I want to highlight the

fol-lowing changes:

✦ The scrolling list at the top of the dialog box mirrors the Option bar’s Gradient

palette and the Gradients panel of the Preset Manager dialog box; if you clickthe triangle at the top of the scrolling list, you display a virtual duplicate of thepalette menu

If you want to see gradient names instead of icons in the list, choose Text Onlyfrom the dialog box menu Or choose Small List or Large List to see both iconand gradient name

✦ To create a new gradient, find an existing gradient that’s close to what you

have in mind Then type a name for the gradient in the Name option box andclick the New button The new gradient appears in the scrolling list, and youcan edit the gradient as you see fit

Even though the gradient appears in the dialog box (as well as in the Gradientpalette and Preset Manager dialog box), it’s vulnerable until you save it aspart of a preset If you make further edits to the gradient or replace the cur-rent gradient preset, the original gradient is a goner Deleting your mainPhotoshop preferences file also wipes out an unsaved gradient See theupcoming section “Saving and managing gradients” for more details

✦ You now can create noise gradients as well as solid-color gradations If you

select Noise from the Gradient Type pop-up menu, Photoshop introduces random color information into the gradient, the result of which is a sort ofspecial-effect gradient that would be difficult to create manually

✦ The options at the bottom of the dialog box change depending on whether

you select Solid or Noise from the Gradient Type pop-up For solid gradients,Photoshop now provides a Smoothness slider, which you can use to adjusthow abrupt you want to make the color transitions in the gradient

✦ You can resize the dialog box by dragging the size box in the lower-right corner

Editing solid gradients

If you select Solid from the Gradient Type pop-up menu, you use the options shown

in Figure 6-13 to adjust the gradient (Note that this is a doctored screen shot — I

made all the options visible in the figure, but normally, only some of these options

are available at a time.)

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Photoshop 6

Caution

Tip

The fade bar (labeled in Figure 6-13) shows the active gradient The starting color appears as a house-shaped color stop on the left; the ending color appears on the far right The upside-down houses on the top of the fade bar are opacity stops.

These stops determine where colors are opaque and where they fade into cency or even transparency

translu-Figure 6-13: Use these controls to adjust the colors and transparency

in a solid gradient

To select either type of stop, click it The triangle portion of the stop appears black

to show you which stop is active After you select a stop, diamond-shaped midpoint markers appear between the stop and its immediate neighbors On the color-stop

side of the fade bar, the midpoint marker represents the spot where the two colorsmix in exactly equal amounts On the transparency side, a marker indicates thepoint where the opacity value is midway between the values that you set for thestops on either side of the marker

You can change the location of any stop or marker by dragging it Or you can click astop or marker to select it and then enter a value in the Location option box belowthe fade bar:

✦ When numerically positioning a stop, a value of 0 percent indicates the left end

of the fade bar; 100 percent indicates the right end Even if you add more stops

to the gradation, the values represent absolute positions along the fade bar

✦ When repositioning a midpoint marker, the initial setting of 50 percent issmack dab between two stops; 0 percent is all the way over to the left stop,and 100 percent is all the way over to the right Midpoint values are, therefore,measured relative to stop positions In fact, when you move a stop, Photo-shop moves the midpoint marker along with it to maintain the same relativepositioning

Fade bar Active opacity stop

Midpoint markerActive color stop

Figure 6-14 shows four black-to-white radial gradations that I created by settingthe midpoint between the black and white color stops to four different posi-tions The midpoint settings range from the minimum to maximum allowableLocation values If you enter a value below 13 percent or over 87, Photoshoppolitely ignores you In all cases, I set the opacity to 100 percent along theentire gradient.

Figure 6-14: Four sets of white-to-black gradations — radial on top and linear at

bottom — subject to different midpoint settings

Pressing Enter after you enter a value into the Location option box is tempting, but

don’t do it If you do, Photoshop dumps you out of the Gradient Editor dialog box

Adjusting colors in a solid gradation

When editing a solid gradation, you can add colors, delete colors, change the

posi-tioning of the colors within the gradient, and control how two colors blend together

After clicking a color stop to select it, you can change its color in several ways:

To change the color to the current foreground color, open the Color pop-up menu,

as shown in Figure 6-15, and select Foreground Select Background to use the

back-ground color instead

✦ When you select Foreground or Background, the color stop becomes filled

with a grayscale pattern instead of a solid color If you squint real hard andput your nose to the screen, you can see that the pattern is actually a repre-sentation of the Foreground and Background color controls in the toolbox

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Photoshop 6

Tip

13% (minimum) 35% 60% 87% (maximum)

The little black square appears in the upper-left corner when the foregroundcolor is active, as shown in the first stop on the fade bar in Figure 6-15; theblack square moves to the bottom-right corner when the background color

is active, as shown in the end stop in the figure

✦ If you change the foreground or background color after closing the GradientEditor, the gradient changes to reflect the new color When you next open theGradient Editor, you can revert the stop to the original foreground or back-ground color by selecting User Color from the pop-up menu

Figure 6-15: A look at the new color stop options in Version 6

✦ To set the color stop to some other color, click the Color swatch or click the color stop to open the Color Picker and define the new color Selectyour color and press Enter

double-✦ You may have noticed that when you opened the Gradient Editor dialog box,Photoshop automatically selected the eyedropper tool for you and displayedthat tool’s controls on the Options bar Here’s why: You can click with the eye-dropper in an open image window to lift a color from the image and assign thecolor to the selected color stop You can also click the Color palette’s colorbar or a swatch in the Swatches palette Or, if you see the color you want inthe fade bar in the dialog box, click it there

Tip

Foreground color stopColor midpoint marker Background color stop

To change the point at which two colors meet, drag the midpoint marker between

the two stops Or click the midpoint marker and enter a new value into the Location

box As I mentioned earlier, a value of 0 puts the midpoint marker smack up against

the left color stop; a value of 100 scoots the stop all the way over to the right stop

You add or delete stops as follows:

✦ To add a color stop, click anywhere along the bottom of the fade bar A new

stop appears where you click Photoshop also adds a midpoint marker between

the new color stop and its neighbors You can add as many color stops as your

heart desires (But if your goal is a gradient featuring tons of random colors,

you may be able to create the effect you want more easily by using the new

Noise gradient option, discussed shortly.)

✦ To duplicate a color stop, Alt-drag it to a new location along the fade bar One

great use for this to create a reflecting gradation

For example, select Foreground to Background from the scrolling list of gradients

and click New to duplicate the gradient After naming your new gradient —

some-thing like Fore to Back to Fore — click the background color stop and change the

Location value to 50 Then Alt-drag the foreground color stop all the way to the

right This new gradient is perfect for making true conical gradations with the

angle gradient tool, as demonstrated in Figure 6-16

Figure 6-16: Two gradations created with the angle gradient tool, one

using the standard Foreground to Background gradient (left) and the

other with my reflected Fore to Back to Fore style (right) Which looks

better to you?

Foreground to Background Fore to Back to Fore

✦ To remove a color stop, drag the stop away from the fade bar Or click thestop and click the Delete button The stop icon vanishes and the fade barautomatically adjusts as defined by the remaining color stops.

Adjusting the transparency mask

If you like, you can include a transparency mask with each gradation The mask

determines the opacity of different colors along the gradation You create and editthis mask independently of the colors in the gradation

To create a transparency mask in Version 6, you play with the opacity stops acrossthe top of the fade bar You don’t have to toggle between editing the opacity andcolor stops as you did in earlier versions of Photoshop; both attributes are alwayswithin reach When you click a transparency stop, the transparency options becomeavailable beneath the fade bar and the color options dim, as shown in Figure 6-17

Figure 6-17: Click a stop along the top of the fade bar to adjust

the opacity of the gradient at that location

To add an opacity stop, click above the fade bar By default, each new stop is 100percent opaque You can modify the transparency by selecting a stop and changingthe Opacity value The fade bar updates to reflect your changes To reposition astop, drag it or enter a value in the Location option box

Midpoint markers represent the spot where the opacity value is half the differencebetween the opacity values of a pair of opacity stops In other words, if you set oneopacity stop to 30 percent and another to 90 percent, the midpoint marker shows

Active opacity stop

you where the gradient reaches 60 percent opacity You can relocate the midpoint

marker, and thus change the spot where the gradient reaches that mid-range

opac-ity value, by dragging the marker or entering a new value in the Location box

Color Plate 6-2 demonstrates the effect of applying a three-color gradation to a

pho-tograph The gradation fades from red to transparency to green to transparency

and, finally, to blue In the first example in the color plate, I dragged over a standard

checkerboard pattern with the gradient tool, from the lower-left corner to the

upper-right corner The second example shows the photograph before applying the

grada-tion In the last example, I applied the gradient — again from lower left to upper

right — using the Overlay brush mode

Creating noise gradients

Adobe describes a noise gradient as a gradient that “contains random components

along with the deterministic ones that create the gradient.” Allow me to translate:

Photoshop adds random colors between the defined colors of the selected

gradi-ent Did that help? No? Then take a look at Figure 6-18, which shows examples of

three noise gradients based on a simple black-to-white gradient You could create

these same gradients using the regular Solid gradient controls, of course, but it

would take you forever to add all the color and midpoint stops required to

pro-duce the same effect

Figure 6-18: Here you see three gradients created using the new Noise option

in the Gradient Editor dialog box I created the first two using two different

Roughness values; for the bottom example, I used the same Roughness

value as in the middle example but selected the Add Transparency option

Roughness, 100

Roughness, 50

Roughness, 100Add Transparency on

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Photoshop 6

To create a noise gradient, select Noise from the Gradient Type menu in the GradientEditor dialog box, as shown in Figure 6-19 You can adjust the gradient as follows:

✦ Raise the Roughness value to create more distinct bands of color, as in the topexample in Figure 6-18 Lowering the Roughness value results in softer colortransitions, as you can see from the middle example, which I set at one halfthe Roughness value of the top example

✦ Use the color sliders at the bottom of the dialog box to define the range ofallowable colors in the gradient You can work in one of three color modes:RGB, HSB, or Lab Select the mode you want from the pop-up menu above the sliders

Figure 6-19: Use the new Noise gradient option to create gradients

like the ones you see in Figure 6-18

✦ The Restrict Colors option, when selected, adjusts the gradient so that youdon’t wind up with any oversaturated colors Deselect the option for morevibrant hues

✦ If you select Add Transparency, Photoshop adds random transparency mation to the gradient, as if you had added scads of opacity stops to a regulargradient In the bottom example of Figure 6-17, I started with the gradient fromthe top example, selected the Add Transparency check box, and left theRoughness value at 100

infor-✦ Click the Randomize button, and Photoshop shuffles all the gradient colorsand transparency values to create another gradient If you don’t like what yousee, just keep clicking Randomize until you’re satisfied

For some really cool effects, try applying special effects filters to a noise gradient.

Figure 6-20 shows the results of applying the Crystallize, Twirl, and Ripple filters on

the original noise gradient shown in the upper-left example

Figure 6-20: I applied three effects filters to the original noise gradient to create

some interesting random patterns

Saving and managing gradients

When you define a new gradient, its icon appears in the palette, the Preset Manger

dialog box, and the Gradient Editor dialog box But if you replace the current

gradi-ent set or edit the gradigradi-ent, the original gradigradi-ent gets trashed You also lose the

gra-dient if you delete your Photoshop 6 preferences file because that’s where the

temporary gradient information is stored