Perfect Gradients (Photoshop)


Forcing The Gradient to Encompass The Full Range of Greens

Sometimes the gradient loses some color values due to cropping or other operations on the image. You can check your color values by opening the "Info" window and dragging your cursor over the image. The brightest green should have the RGB value of 0,255,0. The darkest green should have the RGB value of 0,1,0. If not, you can fix the range by doing the following:

1. Select the green channel in the Channels window.
2. Open the Levels Dialog (Image -> Adjust -> Levels...).
3. In the Input Levels diagram, drag the open rightmost triangle to be just below the rightmost bar.
4. Drag the black triangle to be just to the left of the leftmost bar.
5. If the leftmost bar is flush to the left of the diagram, this means that there is black in the image. If you want to remove the black, then leave the black triangle alone and type "1" into the left Output Levels box that says "0".
6. Click the "OK" button.


The Problem with Gradients

If you use the gradient tool in Photoshop, you can create a gradient that has 255 gradations or steps. Vusic uses a gradient that has 90 steps. When you convert from 255 steps to 90 steps, some values drop out and the resulting gradient becomes uneven. This is most noticeable when you use a full screen gradient for a fill. Some bands are wider than other bands.


Making a Perfect Green Gradient

If it is important to create a gradient that has perfectly even bands, you can create a gradient manually. First, decide how wide you want the bands to be. Multiply that width by 90. That will be the length of the gradient. Create a new document that uses that length for the width and height. Next, make a selection rectangle that represents the first band. Set the foreground color to an RGB value of 0,254,0. Fill the selection with this foreground color. Then make a selection rectangle for the next band and fill it with an RGB value of 0,251,0. Do this 5 times using a green fill value that is three less than the previous value. You should have six bands that have the following green values: 254, 251, 248, 245, 242, 239. Then, copy these six bands and paste them next to the first six bands. While these new six bands are selected, open the Brightness dialog (Image -> Adjust -> Brightness/Contrast...). Set the Brightness value to -17. Copy these six darker bands and paste them next to the originals and then darken as before. Do this 14 times, darkening each group of nine bands by -17. When you are done, you should have 15 groups of six bands for a total of 90 bands. If you did this correctly, the last and darkest band should have an RGB value of 0,1,0.

Right-click the graphic below and select "Save Target As" to download a bitmap file with a 90-band gradient. If you scale the graphic by a multiple of 100%, then all the color bands will have an equal width.





Making a Perfect Red Gradient

The same process described above will work for a red gradient. You can convert a green gradient to a red gradient by pasting the green channel into the red channel and then filling the green channel with black.


Making a Perfect Radial Gradient

To make a perfect radial gradient, you can use the perfect green gradient that you have already made. First, make sure that the image size is a perfect square. Second, make sure that the gradient has the brightest green at the top and the darkest green at the bottom. Then open the Polar Coordinates Filter dialog (Filter -> Distort -> Polor Coordinates...). Select the "Rectangular to Polar" option and click the "OK" button. The resulting image will be a radial gradient with bright green in the center radiating out to dark green. Note that if the gradient runs from left to right, the resulting image would be a gradient that rotates around the center. Make sure the the interpolation setting under General Preferences is set to "Nearest Neighbor." This will prevent color mixing of the pixels.


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