Tutorial Color Panel, Part two " Gradient".

The example on the left is for PhotoImpact version 11. You may find the color panel in some other place depending the version you have. But the way to use it is the same. Open your PhotoImpact and open your color panel. Here I go at My Workspace, click on Panels and then click on Color Panel, or you could just use the shortcut key Shift+F3 it will open your color panel window.
This is our Color Panel window, if you are not on the Gradients tab click on it to select it. What you do see here is the swatch default.
add gradients	edit gradients	delete gradients
We are going to start with the two-color gradients. Click on the add gradients and choose Two-color
A new window open, like the one on the left here.
Now we are going to change our color, first click on the first color showing, a new window will pop up and then choose any color of your choice abd click ok. Do the same for the next color. Give a name to your two-color gradient. Click ok.
Now as you could see on the left example, the gradient I just made as been add to my two-color gradients.
If you click on the little black arrow, you could also add new gradient from there as well.
On the example on the left, if you select one of your two-color gradient and click on the black arrow, you could edit your two-color gradient there as well. Of course if you have chosen a multiple-color gradient, if would have been available for you to choose. As you could see, and learn in part one, you could also clear your gradients. Let's do it, clear your gradients.
This is what you will have after clearing your gradients.
Click on add color and choose two-color. Choose the colors you wish to have. Give it a name and click ok.
Your new two-color gradients is now showing in your color panel. Great.
Open a small canvas, using the pathshape tool, draw a square. Now while it is selected, double click on your two-color gradients in your color panel. Great, it did apply your two-color gradients to your pathshape.
Ok, as you could see at the top left corner of the image on the left, we do have our two-color gradients showing in our box color. Right click on it, a pop up window open and then choose Gradients Fill by clicking on it.
A new window will open. As you can see on the left, our two-color gradients is already showing there.
In this window, you could change the direction the gradient will be apply. Here I did choose the square one and click ok.
This is my result, even if it is a 2d mode pathshape, it does give a 3 dimensional look to it.
Now let's have a look under the fill tool, as you could see we do have Linear Gradient Fill Tool, Rectangular Gradient Fill Tool and the Elliptical Fill Tool. These can only be apply to an image object or a background. Let's choose the Linear Gradient Fill Tool.
This is the tool bar menu for your Linear Gradients when you have the two-color gradients selected.
On a small blank canvas, left click at one side as you hold down your mouse, drag your mouse away and in any direstion you like. Then let go of your left click. I did start mine at the top left here and finish at the bottom right.
This is the result I did get. Play with this, it is very interesting at all the different result you could get.
Here si an other way of using your two-color gradients, go to edit on the top bar, and clcik on the fill tool or use the shortcut key Ctrl+F.
A new window open. Click on the gradient tab and you will see your two-color gradients there as well. You could change the fill type, the merge and the transparency here and have a preview before you apply to your image object or background. As in Part one, you could save your two-color gradients swatch in your color panel, add many as you want and then save. Tips: Create a folder on your hd for your gradients swatch, and give them a revelant name for each one of your swatch when you doi save them. So this way once they are save you could share your gradients swatch with others.
Let's move on to page 2, this where were we are going to learn more on the Multiple color Gradients. Page 2 here.