The GIMP: Custom Gradient Creation
Image heavy and not layout-friendly.
This tutorial was written for the newest version of The Gimp, Gimp 2.2.10. I’m not sure if it will work for lower versions, but you can always try. The crux of the matter lies with a folder path, the main thing you need if you want to create and save custom gradients in Gimp.
1. We start by opening Gimp and, from the File Menu, selecting the Preferences:
In the Preferences menu, click on Folders and then, Gradients:
You have two options here. You can select ‘writable’ next to the default gradients folder, meaning that all custom gradients you create will be saved to Gimp’s default folder in C:\Program Files\GIMP-2.0\share\gimp\2.0\gradients,
or
you can create a new folder inside the default gradients folder, make it writable, and thus keep your custom gradients and Gimp’s default gradients separate. Of course, you can also create a folder anywhere in My Documents, but for the sake of simplicity, I’ll stick to the Gimp gradient folder.
Whatever you do, you have to make one or more folders in here writable, otherwise any and all custom gradients you create will be gone once you shut Gimp down.
To create your own gradients folder and make it writable:
- go to C:\Program Files\GIMP-2.0\share\gimp\2.0\gradients and create a new folder in there. Call it ‘my gradients’ or something like that.
- in the Preferences tab of Gimp, click the button with the three ellipses ‘...’ next to the empty input field on the right.
- use the new menu that pops up to navigate to the folder you just created:
You find this folder by clicking on [Computer name][C:\] in the left-hand menu, then, on the right-hand menu, going through Program Files > Gimp > share > gimp > 2.0 >gradients. Your personal gradient folder should be at the top of the list, like mine is in the screenshot above. Once you found your personal gradient folder, click OK, and you’ll be returned to the Preferences menu:
As you can see, there are now two folders, the Gimp default folder, and your personal folder. Mark your personal folder as writable, as I did above, and click OK. Gimp will give you a prompt to restart the program for the changes to take effect, so shut down and then restart Gimp. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to the fun part of making actual gradients.
2. Creating a custom gradient
Gimp’s gradient editor is a lot different than the editors of PS or PSP, and if you’ve ever worked with either PS or PSP, throw what you know about editing gradients out of the next window, please.
Open the Gimp’s gradient editor by clicking on the appropriate tool tab:
There are several gradients already available for you. Since we’ll be creating a new gradient, our interest lies in the option buttons at the bottom of the gradient editor window:
The options are, in order: Edit - New - Duplicate - Trash - Refresh. Before you click on ‘New’, go back to the gradient window itself and select the gradient I’ve highlighted below. FG ( Foreground Colour ) to BG ( Background Colour ) ( RGB ) means that the gradient will have whatever colours you set as fore- and
background colour respectively.
Now click New, and you’ll be shown the actual gradient editor. To start, check ‘Instant update’ so all changes you make to your new gradient are immediately shown, and give it a name. I left mine at ‘Untitled’ for this part of the tutorial.
Looks pretty simple, doesn’t it? Well, right-click somewhere in that gradient and you’ll see this:
That pop-up menu is what you need to edit/change/create your new gradient, and though it looks somewhat complicated, the process itself isn’t that hard. In fact, I find that the Gimp gradient editor has a few things that major pay-programs like PS and PSP are simply missing. There are just a few points you need to keep in mind.
- the entire gradient is split into segments. One segment is marked by two black triangles ( ‘Handles’) and one white triangle ( ‘Centre’ or ‘Midpoint’ ). By default, a simple Foreground-to-Background-Colour-Gradient has only one segment:
You can select the Centre/Midpoint and drag it around to determine where a colour begins and ends:
- There can be more than just one segment in a gradient. Basically, you can have as many as you want, but more segments mean more editing - but more segments also mean more colours. In this tutorial, we’re going to create a 4-colour-gradient just so you’ll be familiar with all of the important commands.
To add more segments to a gradient, you have three choices from the pop-up menu ( right-click into gradient ):
Replicate Selection: does what it says, replicates the segment x numbers of time.
Split segment(s) at Midpoint(s): divides one segment into two.
Split segments uniformly: divides the entire segment into x number of identical selections.
Selections? Yep. You can select a part of the gradient by clicking on its Centre/Midpoint:
If you want to select more than one segment or part of the gradient, hold down Shift while clicking on the Centre/Midpoint. Keep in mind that even when the entire gradient is split/segmented/divided, you can also still drag the Midpoints around and you can also move entire segments/selections by clicking into the grey bar left and right to the Midpoint and dragging it around:
There are several more options for segments and selections. In the following screenshot, I’ve flipped the segment, selected all segments, Re-centred the segments' Midpoints, and Re-distributed the segments' handles:
You can also Delete a segment, choose the Blending function for a segment, and choose the Colouring type for a segment. These are all options for you to play around with, so spending some time here to simply try different things is always a good idea.
Anyway. Moving on.
To create a 4-colour-gradient, open the gradient window, select the FG to BG ( RGB ) gradient, and click ‘New’. Check ‘Instant update’ and name your gradient. You’ll have this:
As you can see by the grey bar beneath the gradient, the entire segment is selected. Now right-click into your gradient...
...and select ‘Left Endpoint’s Colour’. A colour picker will pop up:
( Ignore the crappy colours, I’m using .gif to save loading time. Also, ignore the wallpaper in the back. )
Choose your Left Endpoint Colour. ‘Left Endpoint’ colour simply means the left side of the gradient, or the left side of the selected segment. We’ll come back to that later, so don’t worry. Before you click OK, though, take a look at the colour picker. See the ‘A’ above the HTML Notation? That’s where you determine how much opacity your currently chosen colour has, so if you want parts of your gradient to be opaque or transparent, this ‘A’ and its slider is where you do that.
Moving on. After you selected your ‘Left Endpoint Colour’, select a ‘Right Endpoint Colour’ the same way...
...and you’ve created a basic 2-colour-gradient. If you like your gradient, you can save it by clicking on the ‘disk’ button in the lower left hand corner of the gradient editor, and then create a new one, but we’re moving for four colours here, so let’s go on.
Right-click into your gradient and select Split Segments Uniformly. Move the slider up to ‘4’:
Select the second segment by left-clicking on the second white triangle ( Centre/Midpoint ) from the left...
...and once more open the pop-up menu by right-clicking into the gradient. Select Right Endpoint Colour and pick any colour you like ( that fits the gradient ). You’ll have something like this:
Select the third white triangle from the left, open the menu, select Left Endpoint Colour, and choose the same colour you picked before:
Getting the hang of this? Select the fourth white triangle from the left, open the pop-up window by right-clicking into the gradient, and choose Right Endpoint Colour. From the colour picker, pick a nice colour that fits the gradient:
And because I’m stupid and these are just three colours, or I’m not counting right because it’s way too late or too early, however you look at it, select the first segment as well and choose a nice, dark Left Endpoint Colour
Frankly, .gif compression sucks, so here’s a nicer image of my gradient so far:
You might consider this gradient finished. To save the gradient, click on the ‘Save’ icon in the lower left
corner of the gradient editor. Go to the gradients/my gradients folder in the Gimp’s program directory to check if it was saved. Gimp gradients always save as *.ggr files.
However, you can still play around with it, namely, with the black triangles ( Handles ) and white triangles ( Centre/Midpoint ). Here’s what I did by sliding these things around a bit:
...you get the idea. You can do some crazy stuff simply by splitting the segments as well:
That’s what happens when you replicate the selection about 4 times, and then replicate it again 7 times. As always, play around with your gradients. Going havoc on the options in the pop-up menu sometimes yields some pretty amazing results.
Tutorial © Nin Noctuidae 2006
Ningengirai.Net
Noctuidae Network
Outside Link
This tutorial was written for the newest version of The Gimp, Gimp 2.2.10. I’m not sure if it will work for lower versions, but you can always try. The crux of the matter lies with a folder path, the main thing you need if you want to create and save custom gradients in Gimp.
1. We start by opening Gimp and, from the File Menu, selecting the Preferences:
In the Preferences menu, click on Folders and then, Gradients:
You have two options here. You can select ‘writable’ next to the default gradients folder, meaning that all custom gradients you create will be saved to Gimp’s default folder in C:\Program Files\GIMP-2.0\share\gimp\2.0\gradients,
or
you can create a new folder inside the default gradients folder, make it writable, and thus keep your custom gradients and Gimp’s default gradients separate. Of course, you can also create a folder anywhere in My Documents, but for the sake of simplicity, I’ll stick to the Gimp gradient folder.
Whatever you do, you have to make one or more folders in here writable, otherwise any and all custom gradients you create will be gone once you shut Gimp down.
To create your own gradients folder and make it writable:
- go to C:\Program Files\GIMP-2.0\share\gimp\2.0\gradients and create a new folder in there. Call it ‘my gradients’ or something like that.
- in the Preferences tab of Gimp, click the button with the three ellipses ‘...’ next to the empty input field on the right.
- use the new menu that pops up to navigate to the folder you just created:
You find this folder by clicking on [Computer name][C:\] in the left-hand menu, then, on the right-hand menu, going through Program Files > Gimp > share > gimp > 2.0 >gradients. Your personal gradient folder should be at the top of the list, like mine is in the screenshot above. Once you found your personal gradient folder, click OK, and you’ll be returned to the Preferences menu:
As you can see, there are now two folders, the Gimp default folder, and your personal folder. Mark your personal folder as writable, as I did above, and click OK. Gimp will give you a prompt to restart the program for the changes to take effect, so shut down and then restart Gimp. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to the fun part of making actual gradients.
2. Creating a custom gradient
Gimp’s gradient editor is a lot different than the editors of PS or PSP, and if you’ve ever worked with either PS or PSP, throw what you know about editing gradients out of the next window, please.
Open the Gimp’s gradient editor by clicking on the appropriate tool tab:
There are several gradients already available for you. Since we’ll be creating a new gradient, our interest lies in the option buttons at the bottom of the gradient editor window:
The options are, in order: Edit - New - Duplicate - Trash - Refresh. Before you click on ‘New’, go back to the gradient window itself and select the gradient I’ve highlighted below. FG ( Foreground Colour ) to BG ( Background Colour ) ( RGB ) means that the gradient will have whatever colours you set as fore- and
background colour respectively.
Now click New, and you’ll be shown the actual gradient editor. To start, check ‘Instant update’ so all changes you make to your new gradient are immediately shown, and give it a name. I left mine at ‘Untitled’ for this part of the tutorial.
Looks pretty simple, doesn’t it? Well, right-click somewhere in that gradient and you’ll see this:
That pop-up menu is what you need to edit/change/create your new gradient, and though it looks somewhat complicated, the process itself isn’t that hard. In fact, I find that the Gimp gradient editor has a few things that major pay-programs like PS and PSP are simply missing. There are just a few points you need to keep in mind.
- the entire gradient is split into segments. One segment is marked by two black triangles ( ‘Handles’) and one white triangle ( ‘Centre’ or ‘Midpoint’ ). By default, a simple Foreground-to-Background-Colour-Gradient has only one segment:
You can select the Centre/Midpoint and drag it around to determine where a colour begins and ends:
- There can be more than just one segment in a gradient. Basically, you can have as many as you want, but more segments mean more editing - but more segments also mean more colours. In this tutorial, we’re going to create a 4-colour-gradient just so you’ll be familiar with all of the important commands.
To add more segments to a gradient, you have three choices from the pop-up menu ( right-click into gradient ):
Replicate Selection: does what it says, replicates the segment x numbers of time.
Split segment(s) at Midpoint(s): divides one segment into two.
Split segments uniformly: divides the entire segment into x number of identical selections.
Selections? Yep. You can select a part of the gradient by clicking on its Centre/Midpoint:
If you want to select more than one segment or part of the gradient, hold down Shift while clicking on the Centre/Midpoint. Keep in mind that even when the entire gradient is split/segmented/divided, you can also still drag the Midpoints around and you can also move entire segments/selections by clicking into the grey bar left and right to the Midpoint and dragging it around:
There are several more options for segments and selections. In the following screenshot, I’ve flipped the segment, selected all segments, Re-centred the segments' Midpoints, and Re-distributed the segments' handles:
You can also Delete a segment, choose the Blending function for a segment, and choose the Colouring type for a segment. These are all options for you to play around with, so spending some time here to simply try different things is always a good idea.
Anyway. Moving on.
To create a 4-colour-gradient, open the gradient window, select the FG to BG ( RGB ) gradient, and click ‘New’. Check ‘Instant update’ and name your gradient. You’ll have this:
As you can see by the grey bar beneath the gradient, the entire segment is selected. Now right-click into your gradient...
...and select ‘Left Endpoint’s Colour’. A colour picker will pop up:
( Ignore the crappy colours, I’m using .gif to save loading time. Also, ignore the wallpaper in the back. )
Choose your Left Endpoint Colour. ‘Left Endpoint’ colour simply means the left side of the gradient, or the left side of the selected segment. We’ll come back to that later, so don’t worry. Before you click OK, though, take a look at the colour picker. See the ‘A’ above the HTML Notation? That’s where you determine how much opacity your currently chosen colour has, so if you want parts of your gradient to be opaque or transparent, this ‘A’ and its slider is where you do that.
Moving on. After you selected your ‘Left Endpoint Colour’, select a ‘Right Endpoint Colour’ the same way...
...and you’ve created a basic 2-colour-gradient. If you like your gradient, you can save it by clicking on the ‘disk’ button in the lower left hand corner of the gradient editor, and then create a new one, but we’re moving for four colours here, so let’s go on.
Right-click into your gradient and select Split Segments Uniformly. Move the slider up to ‘4’:
Select the second segment by left-clicking on the second white triangle ( Centre/Midpoint ) from the left...
...and once more open the pop-up menu by right-clicking into the gradient. Select Right Endpoint Colour and pick any colour you like ( that fits the gradient ). You’ll have something like this:
Select the third white triangle from the left, open the menu, select Left Endpoint Colour, and choose the same colour you picked before:
Getting the hang of this? Select the fourth white triangle from the left, open the pop-up window by right-clicking into the gradient, and choose Right Endpoint Colour. From the colour picker, pick a nice colour that fits the gradient:
And because I’m stupid and these are just three colours, or I’m not counting right because it’s way too late or too early, however you look at it, select the first segment as well and choose a nice, dark Left Endpoint Colour
Frankly, .gif compression sucks, so here’s a nicer image of my gradient so far:
You might consider this gradient finished. To save the gradient, click on the ‘Save’ icon in the lower left
corner of the gradient editor. Go to the gradients/my gradients folder in the Gimp’s program directory to check if it was saved. Gimp gradients always save as *.ggr files.
However, you can still play around with it, namely, with the black triangles ( Handles ) and white triangles ( Centre/Midpoint ). Here’s what I did by sliding these things around a bit:
...you get the idea. You can do some crazy stuff simply by splitting the segments as well:
That’s what happens when you replicate the selection about 4 times, and then replicate it again 7 times. As always, play around with your gradients. Going havoc on the options in the pop-up menu sometimes yields some pretty amazing results.
Tutorial © Nin Noctuidae 2006
Ningengirai.Net
Noctuidae Network
Outside Link