Editing gradients

Related to my previous post, that no-one has replied to... I
have decided to recreate the gradients in Freehand. However I'm
finding it hard to get fine control using the gradient creation
strip in the object inspector pallette. I need to be able to
position different colour swatches at 0%, 3%, 37% etc along the
gradient, but when swatches get too close they snap into each
other. Is there anyway to get finer control or numerical control of
the colours in the gradient? Can I edit the gradient directly on
the shape I've drawn on the page?

mitchino wrote:
> Is there anyway to get finer control or numerical
control of the colours in
> the gradient?
FreeHand does not offer numerical control of the position of
color steps in
a gradient. In some cases, you might get the precision you
need using a
blend instead of a gradient.
Judy Arndt

Similar Messages

Can I edit gradient swatches so it affects everywhere its used like normal swatches?

I have a gradient swatch made up of several single color swatches that are sent to global. If I alter the color to those, it affects everywhere the gradients are used as intended. Now I want to edit that gradient swatch by adding other colors and sections to it. When I do this, it doesnt seem to affect anywhere that gradient is used. Seems i have to create a 2nd gradient swatch instead and reapply it everywhere i had the original gradient swatch applied. This just doesnt seem right, is there a better way of doing this?

This just doesnt seem right...
No, it doesn't. Welcome to Illustrator.
Note that Gradient Swatches cannot be set to Global.
Note that each application of a given Gradient Swatch can have its own angle and spread. The angle and spread are not stored in the Swatch, but with each object.
Note that the Swatch Options dialog for a Gradient Swatch does not provide any Gradient editing. It's the same dialog as for ordinary solid Swatches, and everything is grayed out.
So you can use the eyedropper to copy a Grad fill, including its angle/spread, from one object to another. But you can't update a Gradient Swatch by AltDragging the object onto the Swatch, nor by AltDragging the object's Fill from the Appearance Palette onto the Swatch, but only by AltDragging the Swatch from the Color palette (where, by the way, it doesn't even belong; a Gradient is not a color) or from the Gradient palette, but in those cases the angle/spread is not stored.
You can, however, drag an object containing a Gradient into the Graphic Styles palette. Then you can apply that Graphic Style, including its angle/spread to other objects. Then you can edit the Grad stops, angle, or spread of one of those objects and AltDrag that object onto the stored Graphic Style, and other objects with that Style applied will update accordingly.
Doing that, however, stores/updates all of the modified object's Appearances in the Style. So if the modified path also has a Stroke, AltDragging the modified object also causes the Stroke to be added to all other objects with that Style applied.
You can workaround that by applying the Gradient at a Group level, rather than at the object level, storing that as a Style, and only applying it to other Groups. That requires some careful planning. For example:
Draw three unfilled paths, each with a different Stroke.
Select each one individually and Group it, so you have three Groups, each containing one path.
Select one Group. Apply a Grad Fill to it.
Drag it to the Graphic Styles palette.
Select the other two Groups. Apply the Style.
WhitePointer: Select just the path inside one of the Groups. Give it a thick Stroke. Deselect.
Select the same Group. Gradient palette: alter the Grad.
AltDrag the modified Group and drop it onto the Style. The Grads of the other Groups update, but their (object-level) strokes are not wrecked.
Of course all that requires an awful lot of foresight and pre-planning.
Note that Illustrator is exceedingly confused, scattered, inconsistent, and utterly unintuitive.
JET

Can't edit gradient or brush tool.

Im not sure what did I change but now when I use the gradient or brush tool the pin and stripes that used to show
that allowed you to edit and select them no longer shows.
I NEED IT BACK, HELP/

This happened to me as well, it would be nice if there was a hidden indicator in the right panel around the dimmed out edit button to indicate there are existing edits but they are just hidden.

How to edit gradient swatch

I make a gradient and drag it to the swatches palette and name it.
If I want to edit it I select it and make a change in the gradient palette but the instant I touch anything the gradient is no longer selected and my edits can only be saved by creating a new swatch. I will have too many swatches this way.
So how does one edit an existing gradient swatch?
Thanks for any help.

Yeah. Intuitive, isn't it? If you doubleClick a Grad Swatch, the Edit Swatch dialog opens, which does not provide Gradient sliders.
Edit the grad in the grad palette. Press and hold Alt while you drag it from the grad palette and drop it onto the existing Swatch.
JET

PS CS3: Unable to edit gradient

Hi all,
I've recently (only in the last 3 runs) been having issues with Photoshop CS3 for Mac, whereby it won't let me edit the gradient.
Clicking in the gradient window (top bar, when the Gradient tool is selected) would ordinarily open the gradient dialogue box, allowing colours and (more important) transparency to be set. However, clicking it now sets my tool to eyedropper, and the top bar to "Sample size: Point Sample". In addition, it freezes in this way, not functioning at all until I press Escape, and then returns to the previous state (Gradient tool & bar, but lo, no dialogue).
Does anyone have any ideas about possible fixes?
Sorry to post here, but I haven't found anyone else report this problem, and it's a painful niusance!
Many thanks,
Richard

the best way to reset prefs without trashing everything else in the photoshop settings folder.
From the Photoshop help files:
Restore all preferences to default settings
Do one of the following:
Press and hold Alt+Control+Shift (Windows) or Option+Command+Shift (Mac OS) as you start Photoshop. You are prompted to delete the current settings.

Fill/stroke gradients from shape tool option bar: editing color stop/midpoint location values

Hi!
In PS6 beta 1 (20120305.m415), the new gradient editor available from the shape tool option bar, used to edit gradient for both fill and stroke, doesn't contain editable stops location percentage input fields.
Those are available from the traditional gradient editor dialog box, for opacity and color stops and midpoints. They are quite handy to create gradient with some precise stops.
Could you please enhance the new gradient editor and add either these two location fields, or at least, a tooltip which displays a stop/midpoint percentage value as we drag it?
Thanks,
el' ~

If you click on the gradient bar it will bring up the full gradient editor.

How can I get "distorted" gradient fills to copy & paste properly?

Here's the situation simplified: I create a document and draw a circle and fill it with a circular gradient fill. I then copy and paste that circle into a new document. It looks exactly the same, and importantly, the gradient fill is still editable, so I can change the colours making up the gradient, their positions on the gradient-slider, etc.
However, if I draw the circle in the first document, fill it with a circular gradient fill, and then I "distort" the gradient's shape to an oval shape, using the gradient tool — still keeping the circle itself as a circular shape (only the fill has changed shape) — and I then copy and paste this circle into a document, it does not get copied across properly as a "true" gradient fill.
At first glance, it looks the same. However, viewing the circle in Outline mode shows that the gradient fill has been expanded into 100s and 100s of flat solid coloured objects, each one laid on top of another, getting progressively smaller and smaller, and all masked in the original circle shape.
And of course, as the gradient fill has been expanded, it is no longer "live" and no longer editable, so I now can not edit its colours or positions on the gradient-slider, etc.
So, how can I make it so that Illustrator maintains and keeps the correct gradient fill when copying and pasting between documents? I've tried editing all the settings under Preferences > File Handling & Clipboard, but all without success.
At the moment, to overcome this "bug", I have to separate the two document windows by dragging its tab out of the main Illustrator window, so I now have two floating windows, rather than all windows tabbed in the one environment, and I then have to drag and drop the object from one window to the other. Slightly inconvenient, but it does get the job done.
Strangely enough, dragging and dropping DOES work, whereas copying and pasting does NOT. Weird.
However this slight inconvenience soon adds up when I have to do it many many many times over.
And it gets progressively worse, because dragging and dropping does not allow me to place the object in the position I want it, whereas with copying and pasting, I could ordinarily choose to "Paste In Front" to place my object exactly in the same position between the two documents.
In order to overcome this, I have to drag and drop to get the gradient fill across correctly, and then I have to copy and paste a non-filled duplicate version of the object to get it in precisely the same place, and then I have to use the alignment tools to get the two objects to line up. This = major inconvenience.
And all this becomes even worse when attempting to copy an Illustrator object into Photoshop as a Smart Object, because when I then double-click the Smart Object in Photoshop to edit it, the gradient fill has been expanded — because, obviously, the object had to have been copied and pasted to get it from Illustrator into Photoshop, and this is the problem that Illustrator seems to be having.

Thanks for the continuing answers guys, mucho appreciado.
However, to go through what's been said since my last post...
I tried launching Illustrator in another user account on this machine, but it wouldn't even launch! I got some error number (which I don't recall offhand, but I can re-check it later).
To clarify, this is an official install of CS4 (so no pirating here!), and Illustrator was not running in my other main user account.
And the InDesign thing wouldn't apply to me, as I don't use that app at all. I do invariably have a couple of other CS4 apps running though, usually always Photoshop and Bridge.
I CAN understand how copying and pasting from Illustrator to InDesign would cause this though, because InDesign doesn't support live editable gradients to the same advanced degree that Illustrator does, so it has to expand it when doing so, thereby losing its editability.
Copying and pasting whilst staying completely within Illustrator though is a different story.
You know what — I just had a thought... What if this is nothing to do with Illustrator, but is instead something to do with my Mac OS's system-level clipboard?
I actually had a 3rd-party multiple-item clipboard item installed some time ago, but then never used it. Maybe there's still remnants of that floating around and that's interfering with it somehow?
I'll see if I can clear out all traces of it and see if it makes a difference... Fingers crossed!

Do you know how to re-colour a single colour gradient?

Hi Everyone,
Perhaps this is simple for one of you Photoshop gurus out there. I would like to know how to change the colour of a single layered, single coloured gradient (foreground to transparent) image. There is nothing more to it than that other than I don't want to use the hue/saturation adjustment as it's hard to get a specific colour. Any help will be much appreciated.
Many thanks

G'day
It might be simpler to redo the gradient using the gradient tool (G)
Select Gradient tool > 'click' on gradient in top tool bar (click to edit gradient)
This brings up the Gradient Editor.
Make sure the Foreground to Backgroumd one is selected in the presets.
Double 'click' the color stop at the bottom of the gradient bar in the gradient editor and select the color that you want from the color picker.
You can also play around with the other opacity and color stops.
Then drag and use the gradient tool.
regards
John

Transform Gradient Tool center pt keeps appearing on the left edge of the stage and it's annoying..

I'm editing gradients in small areas. When I want to edit the gradient fill of a small shape, I have to zoom all the way out because the center of the gradient is on the left edge of the stage somewhere. I'm getting a little tired of dragging the center point over to the small area requiring the fill.
Occasionally the Transform Gradient Tool will appear within the zoomed in area I'm working in but I'm unsure why! Any tips out there my friends?
Thanks!
-DEO

This may be related to session restore.
*[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=774943 bug 774943] - Session restore puts "+" button in the wrong spot and hides first tab
*[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=714382 bug 714382] - Leftmost tab is hidden when reopening browser window
<i>([https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html please do not comment in bug reports])</i>

No "ANGLE" Option for Linear Gradients in Motion 4!

Referring to the help section for Motion 4, there should be an "angle" tool for linear gradients, but there's not! I have a linear gradient that runs top to bottom and I want it to run left to right. Is there any other way to do this without having to rotate my entire shape object (which would require other modifications?)
Thanks,
~Greg

You can do it by the numbers in the Inspector by changing the start and end points, or you can right-click in the Canvas and choose Edit Gradient to adjust it interactively - assuming it's a shape with a gradient applied.

"edit in" functions not that functional ?

with 3 jpg's selected:
Develop module>photo>edit in>open as layers in photoshop
nothing happens.
With 3 jpg's selected:
Develop module>photo>edit in>edit in CS4
only the selected one of the three selected goes to CS4. I would like all 3 selected to go.
LR is in 64 bit mode; OSX is not in 64 bit mode.
LR 2.4,
OSX.6.1
Quien sabe?

Running SL 10.6.1 (32Bit Kernel) and updated to LR 2.5 (running in 64 Bit Mode)...
Now I have a problem with 'Edit In' - In my Case Photoshop CS 4 11.0.1 (Updated Camera Raw to 5.5.0.97) .. The exported TIFF (or PSD - tried both) doesn`t open up inPhotoshop CS4 when I have edited some files in Lightroom. If a file is completly unedited in LR it open in CS4 as usual, but (don`t know under which circumstances) I have edited colors, exposure, edited gradients etc. I can`t export from LR to CS4 as usual with 'Edit in'.
Is this a Bug? Is there a workaround? Thanks for any help.

Gradient doesn't show up in illustrator CS3 from PDF

Hallo,
In the last week I got 2 different PDF files I opened in Illustrator CS3, and the gradient object wasn't showing at all. I checked the transparency, it's 100%.
Both files were made in InDesign CS4. When I open the PDF in Acrobat Reader, It's showing the gradient.
Anyone who has a solution for this problem?

Both files were made in InDesign CS4.
ID gradients or not the same as AI, even more so, since even the AI gradient tool has considerably changed in CS4. The PDF probably shows the flattened version, but since there is no native AI data, there is nothing to reconstruct an editable gradient or blend to get the same in AI. Nothing you can do. you may get it to import as a bitmap by running it through Acrobat's flattening, but that is as good as it gets IMO.
Mylenium

Saving last screen layout for next edit session?

Before making a feature request, I wanted to find out if there's a way to do this. When I'm editing, I often want
to open a file in exactly the same place I left off, including the zoom level, part of the image being viewed, window sizes, etc. Is there a way to do this easily?
Thanks.

Ok turning it round, how does Photoshop in its inteface and implementation prevent, or even slow you down, in doing what you want?
Layer --> Layer Styles --> Stroke --> Mode: Gradient Burst --> Edit Gradient --> Edit Gradient Stop Color
That is 5 (!) modal panels on top of each other. Similarly clunky workflows can be observed in many other places.
VIdeo - I don't want to buy
After Effects to color correct a simple short video, and the TOOLS in
Photoshop are much better implemented for this.
C'mon, get real! Do you really think people would convert their footage back and forth and splice it up ins 500 frame chunks just for the not so distinct pleasure of running it through PS? 500 frames is not even a minute in PAL, much less NTSC. And no, PS color correction tools (nor its filters, nor 3D) are not really better - for video, anyway. You know, such minor things as temporal stabilization and all that.... Even some free VirtualDub plug-ins do that 20 times better. Sorry, you really don't know what you are talking about.
Whilst
agreeing that, at the moment, Photoshops implementation of its 3D
features in terms of interface leaves a lot to be desired - to be able
to import and work with 3D in photoshop is an obvious and much needed
move forward. Its just Beta 2. Like I said - a purpose for everything.
If you pick out the few threads here (whose low numbers alone could be indicative of the lack of use and popularity of 3D features) on this forum from users who have tried to actually use it, there is quantifyable disappointment about the lack of 3D paint performance or any number of oddities getting it to work at all. The awful UI and Adobe's crooked understanding of 3D terminology and features are just one more thing on top of that. And frankly, I've been doing 3D much longer than working with any Adobe program and I really think I have seen better performance and quality in some programs in the early 90s. Again, severe quality problems on all ends (dithering noise, value clamping, incorrect HDR to LDR conversion etc.) plus lack of performance and interoperability. So much for that. The whole point of a 3D implementation is lost, when it entails endless touch-ups afterwards to fix its shortcomings. 3D is all about easy reproducibility and PS' current model clearly doesn't do that. It merely serves as another way to fabricate some sort of pixels, but completely pushing aside and ignoring any benefits a more wholesome implementation would have.
Mylenium

Gradients with small space between color sliders

I'm editing gradients that have multiple color sliders that are quite close (overlapping). Is there some way to enlarge the gradient panel or an easy way to select individual color sliders? It would help if there is a keyboard shortcut that could navigate from one color slider to the next, if anyone knows of such a shortcut.

It is what it is...

Gradients -- Spot Colors -- Illustrator CC

I have created a gradient in Illustrator CC
Using percentages of a single spot color, applied to a bar graph.
The gradient definition is clearly in the pantone color
When the bar chart is imported into InDesign CC, it separates as cmyk.
When attempting to find a solution, i have seen references to a "Separation Setup Dialogue Box".
http://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/apply-or-edit-gradient.html
And I recall having used this in earlier versions of Illustrator.
But I cannot find that dialogue box in Illustrator CC, or any other function that would preserve the spot color separation.
Any guidance would be appreciated.
Thank you!

After having done some tests, I believe that the problem MAY have to do with saving up from earlier versions.
i leave this information with thaks to Monika (as well as Mike) in hopes that it may help someone else dealing with the same problem.
1) The gradients were created by
-- loading pantone swatches
-- using gradient tool, then assigning the pantone color to the pointers on the gradient tools, and assigning percentages via the "greyscale-type" styler
2) The files were saved in .ai format.
3) Placed, not pasted into Indesign
4) My current method of checking the colors is both using InDesign's Window > Output > Separations preview... as well as outputting separations to my laser printer.
WHAT I LEARNED WAS THIS.
The files that began in earlier versions of AI and were saved separated into CMYK (but curiously also created pantone plate) so they were in fact 5 color builds
When I started from scratch with a brand new Illustrator CC file, the gradients otherwise created by the same method remained in the pantone color when placed in InDesign.
There are so many variables here that I am not entirely CERTAIN that attributing this to the change in version is accurate.
But at this point, that is what I believe.
Thanks again to all who helped and good luck to all lost digital pilgrims who wind up in this thread.

Editing gradients

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for