Gradient tool
Four kinds of gradient, on a shape or straight onto painted pixels, with the whole ramp editable from the options bar as well as on the canvas.
The Gradient tool (G) builds and edits a gradient. On a Shape layer the gradient lives in the shape's fill or stroke and stays editable forever; on a Raster or Pixel layer there is no fill to keep it in, so the finished ramp is baked into the layer's pixels.
The bar carries the whole ramp: the type, the target, a strip of colour stops, the stop operations and what the ramp does past its ends. Everything on it is live, so you can build the ramp before you draw the first drag.
The six types
The type combo lists the same six entries as the Fill Type and Stroke Type combos in the Properties panel, in the same order, so the same choice means the same thing wherever you make it. It used to be a two-segment Linear / Radial toggle, which left no way to remove a gradient or flatten it to a colour without a trip to Properties.
| Type | What it paints |
|---|---|
| None | No fill at all. The channel is switched off and the tool paints nothing |
| Solid | One flat colour. It is a linear gradient whose two stops are locked together, so the strip is how you pick that colour |
| Linear | A ramp along a straight line between two points |
| Elliptical | A centred ramp with independent X and Y radii and a rotation |
| Radial | A centred ramp in a full circle. It is the special case of Elliptical where both radii match |
| Conical | A sweep around the centre, starting from the gradient's own angle |
The four centred kinds share their geometry fields, so switching among Elliptical, Radial and Conical keeps the centre and the radius exactly where they were. Linear keeps its own two endpoints alongside them, which means a Linear to Radial and back round trip no longer throws your handles away.
The four gradient kinds also share one ramp. Pick Solid and the tool takes the colour of the ramp's start stop, which is the stop at the lowest position rather than the first one in the list, and parks the ramp; leave Solid again and it comes back untouched.
A type pick applies to every editable vector shape in the selection, not only the primary one. On a locked or hidden shape the combo is disabled rather than silently snapping back.
Fill, Stroke or Both
The target pill decides which channel the tool writes: the shape's fill, its stroke, or both at once with the fill mirrored onto the stroke. It is a vector-shape idea, so it is hidden while a bitmap layer is selected, where it would do nothing.
The type combo reads and writes whichever channel the pill names, so picking Conical with Stroke selected edits the stroke and leaves the fill alone.
The stop strip
The strip on the bar is the same gradient bar the Properties panel draws, and the two edit the same stops, so a change in one shows in the other at once. What it is bound to depends on what you have selected:
- A vector shape already carrying a gradient: that shape's stops, wrapped in an undo step and auto-keyed like any other style edit
- A bitmap layer: the tool's own stops. A baked gradient has no fill to keep them in, so on that layer this list IS the gradient, and editing it is a document change with its own undo step
- Anything else: the tool's own stops as a preview, which is also what a new gradient is seeded from
| Gesture | What it does |
|---|---|
| Click a handle | Select that stop |
| Drag a handle | Move the stop along the ramp |
| Click a handle without dragging | Open that stop's popup |
| Double-click a handle | Open the popup as well |
| Double-click the strip away from a handle | Add a stop there, sampled from the ramp so nothing changes until you move or recolour it |
| Right-click a handle | Delete that stop; the last two are kept |
| Drag a mid-point tick | Bias where the two neighbouring colours meet |
A drag moves the stop the press landed on, not the selected one, so pressing on an empty part of the strip cannot teleport your selection to the cursor. The strip holds up to 64 stops.
While the strip is driving the tool's own stops, the Color panel follows it: the wheel edits the selected stop instead of repainting the shape, and X or D swaps the two swatches without writing through. Otherwise picking a colour for a stop would flatten the gradient you are in the middle of building.
The stop popup
The popup opens under the handle and holds a compact colour picker, a saturation-value square with a hue and an opacity slider plus the per-stop Noise amount, then three percentage fields: Position, Opacity and Mid Point. The bar itself keeps only the operations, which is what stops it from growing a row of fields that pushes everything else off a small screen.
Mid Point is where the 50/50 blend with the next stop sits, as a percentage of the span to it. 50% is a plain ramp. The last stop has no next stop to blend towards, so its Mid Point field is disabled rather than hidden, and the row does not jump as your selection moves along the ramp.
The stop operations
| Button | What it does | Disabled when |
|---|---|---|
| Add Stop | Inserts a stop halfway to the next one, sampled so the ramp is unchanged | There are already 64 stops |
| Duplicate | Copies the selected stop just after itself | There are already 64 stops |
| Delete Stop | Removes the selected stop | Only two stops are left |
| Reverse | Flips every stop position, so the ramp runs the other way | Never |
| Lock Aspect Ratio | Keeps the two radii proportional while either arm is dragged. A toggle: the button tints when it is on | Shown only on an Elliptical gradient |
A circle has nothing to lock and a conical sweep has no second radius, so Lock Aspect Ratio joins the cluster only where it applies rather than sitting there greyed out.
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. On a centred gradient Reflect is what draws rings marching outward past the radius, which is the setting to check first when a radial gradient repeats itself unexpectedly.
On a vector shape the setting belongs to the fill, so it travels with the document and animates with the rest of the style. On a bitmap layer there is no fill, so it is tool state and applies to the next bake.
On the canvas
With a gradient live, the tool draws its handles straight on the canvas. A linear gradient shows a square at each end of the ramp; a centred one shows a square at the centre and another at the end of its axis, which carries both the radius and the angle. An elliptical gradient adds a second arm at right angles for its other radius.
The colour stops sit on the ramp itself as small rings, and a short tick between each adjacent pair is that pair's mid point. Drag any of them. The hit order is stops first, then the end squares, then the ticks, so an overlapping tick never steals a click from a stop.
- Drag an end square to move that end, which on a centred gradient sets the radius and the angle together
- Drag the centre square to move the whole gradient; the radius and angle follow it
- Drag a stop ring to move it along the ramp
- Drag a tick to bias the blend, exactly as the strip does
- Double-click the ramp away from a handle to add a stop there
Gradients on Raster and Pixel layers
Select a Raster or Pixel layer and the tool switches to a live session on it. The rule is the same one the Magic Wand follows: it is the ACTIVE layer that decides, not whatever shape happens to sit under the cursor.
- Select the Raster or Pixel layer.
- Drag on the canvas from where the ramp should start to where it should end. Hold Shift to lock the direction to 15 degree steps.
- Release. The gradient is baked into the layer's pixels for the current frame.
The two points are carried into the layer's own pixel space, so a scaled or rotated layer still ramps between the two places you actually dragged. The handles stay up after you release, and the session keeps re-baking as you adjust them, the type, the stops or Extend.
A live session ends on exactly three things: a right-click, a tool change, or selecting a different layer. Clicking empty canvas does not end it, because a single stray click used to throw the handles away.
How far the bake reaches
- With a pixel selection live, the gradient is clipped to it
- On a Pixel layer with no selection, it fills the canvas page
- On a Raster layer with no selection, it fills the visible cell, whose own width and height already define its extent
Painting on a held frame edits the drawing that is being held rather than stamping a new cell, the same rule the brush and the fill bucket follow. The whole bake is one history step.
What is remembered
The type, the target, the tool's own stops with their noise and mid points, and Extend all survive closing the app. None and Solid deliberately do not: both leave the tool inert, and restoring one at startup would make the tool look dead on the first click.
| G | Gradient tool |
| Shiftdrag | Lock the direction to 15 degree steps, on a bitmap layer |
| Ctrldrag an elliptical arm | Lock the aspect ratio for that one drag |