Gradients
A fill or a stroke can fade between colours instead of sitting flat, in four kinds, with a mid point on every span and a choice of what happens past the ends.
Set a Shape layer's Fill Type or Stroke Type, in the Properties panel or on the canvas with the Gradient tool, to any of the four gradient kinds and it becomes a gradient. A brand-new gradient starts with two stops: the shape's previous solid colour fading to the Color panel's current fill colour.
The four kinds
| Kind | How it ramps | Geometry |
|---|---|---|
| Linear | Along a straight line | A Start point and an End point |
| Elliptical | Outward from a centre, squashed on one axis | A Center, two radii and a rotation |
| Radial | Outward from a centre, in a full circle | A Center and one Radius |
| Conical | As a sweep around the centre | A Center, a radius and the angle the sweep starts from |
Radial is the special case of Elliptical where both radii match, which is why switching between them never has to convert anything. All three centred kinds share the same geometry fields, so moving among them keeps the centre and the radius in place, and Linear keeps its own two endpoints alongside them: a Linear to Radial and back round trip leaves your handles exactly where you put them.
The geometry is stored relative to the shape's own bounding box rather than in absolute canvas coordinates, so the gradient travels with the shape as it moves, scales or rotates.
Editing stops on canvas
With the Gradient tool active on a shape that already has one, drag the end squares to move a linear gradient's Start or End, or the centre and axis-end squares to move and resize a centred one. The axis end carries the radius and the angle together. An elliptical gradient adds a second arm at right angles for its other radius.
Drag any colour-stop ring along the ramp to reposition it, or double-click the ramp away from a handle to add a new stop there, with a colour sampled from the ramp so nothing changes until you move or recolour it.
Editing stops in the panels
Selecting a stop, on the canvas or in either gradient bar, shows its Position as a 0 to 1 field and opens its colour. A gradient always keeps at least two stops, and the delete button is disabled once only two remain.
The bar in the Properties panel and the strip on the Gradient tool's options bar are the same control editing the same stops, so a change in one shows in the other at once, and the selected stop is shared between them and the canvas.
Mid point
Every stop carries a Mid Point: where the 50/50 blend with the NEXT stop falls, as a percentage of the span to it. At 50% the two colours meet halfway and the span is a plain ramp; move it and the blend biases towards one side, which is how you get a long soft fall-off into a short hard edge without adding a stop.
Set it by dragging the tick between two handles, on the strip or on the canvas, or by typing a percentage in the stop popup. The last stop has nothing after it to blend towards, so its field is disabled.
Extend
Extend decides what the ramp does past its two ends: Pad holds the end colours, Reflect mirrors the ramp back and forth, and Repeat starts it over. It belongs to the fill, so it is saved with the document.
Colour noise
Each stop has its own Noise amount, from 0 to 1, set from a small control inside that stop's colour picker. It overlays a per-pixel grain on that part of the gradient to break up smooth banding, and it interpolates along with the colour between neighbouring stops rather than switching abruptly.
Ready-made ramps
The Swatches panel ships 48 gradients in two categories. Gradients holds the general-purpose ones, from Black to White through metal sweeps to a colour wheel. Sky Gradients holds 22 daylight and weather ramps, Dawn through Night by way of Blue Hour, Overcast, Sea Fog, Alpenglow, Monsoon and Starry Night, so a background sky is one click rather than a stop list. Clicking one drops the whole ramp into the fill or stroke, and handles you have already placed survive a swap between two ramps of the same kind.
Keyframing a gradient
A gradient keyframes as part of the shape's Fill Color or Stroke Color channel: the whole thing, stops, positions, colours, mid points and noise together, the same way a solid colour does. Dragging a handle with that channel's auto-key armed stamps a keyframe on release.
Keying from a solid colour into a gradient animates smoothly: Celas Studio treats the solid as a gradient where every stop is that one colour, so it blooms into the real gradient rather than popping. Keying between two kinds whose geometry is described too differently cannot blend the same way, so instead one cross-fades on top of the other across the transition rather than snapping partway through. That covers every pair, so keying into an Elliptical or a Conical fades into the real thing rather than into a circle standing in for it. Extend has no in-between values, so it switches at the halfway point.