Corel Painter Help | Creating gradients

Creating gradients

Although Corel Painter comes with preset gradients, you can create custom gradients.

You can create from very simple to very complex gradients. For a simple two-point gradient, you choose a main and an additional color, and then Corel Painter generates the gradient colors between them.

A two-point gradient (right) generated from the main and additional colors (left)

You can also create a new gradient by editing an existing gradient. For information, see To edit a gradient preset.

You can use any existing image as a source for creating new gradients. For example, you can capture the colors in a photo of a sunset, or paint your own range of colors as the content of a gradient.

To create a perfect blend between a series of colors, it is better to work with a row of single pixels than a large piece of an image.

You can save your custom gradients in the Gradient Library so you can use them in future projects. When you save a gradient, it is stored in a library. For more information about working with libraries, see Working with libraries.

All gradients are stored in the Painter Gradients library, which is accessible from the Media Selector bar.

To create a two-point gradient

1 In the Color panel (Window

Color Panels

Color Panel (Full View)), click the Main Color (front) swatch

, and choose a main color.

2 Click the Additional Color (back) swatch

, and choose an additional color.

3 In the Gradients panel (Window

Media Panels

Gradients), choose Main to Additional Color

in the Painter Gradients area.

4 Click the Gradient options button

, and choose Save Gradient.

5 In the Save Gradient dialog box, type a name for the gradient in the Save as box.

To create a gradient from an image

1 Click the Rectangular Selection tool

in the toolbox.

2 Drag in the document window to select a horizontal or vertical area, making the selection as narrow as possible.

If the selection is horizontal, Corel Painter creates the gradient from the first row of pixels starting at the upper left.

If the selection is vertical, Corel Painter creates the gradient from the first column of pixels, starting at the upper left.

3 In the Gradients panel (Window

Media Panels

Gradients), click the Gradient options button

, and choose Capture Gradient.

4 In the Capture Gradient dialog box, type a name for the gradient in the Save as box.

The new gradient is saved in the current library. In the future, you can choose it by name from the Gradients panel.

After a gradient is captured, it can no longer be edited. To change a captured gradient, change the artwork from which it was captured, and then recapture the gradient.