Gradient Tool

The Gradient tool paints a smooth transition between your current foreground and background colors on the canvas.

You can activate the Gradient tool from the canvas toolbar.

Where Gradient Draws

Gradient only draws into the active raster layer:

• It does not draw into inpaint masks.
• It does not draw into other non-raster layer types.
• The result is always clipped to the current generation bounding box.

If a raster layer is not selected, the tool is unavailable.

Common Behavior

• Click and drag to define the gradient.
• Release the pointer to commit the gradient.
• Press Esc to discard the in-progress gradient.
• Hold Alt to temporarily switch to the color picker.
• Hold Space to temporarily switch to panning.

The Gradient tool uses the current FG/BG color pair:

• The active color swatch becomes the start color.
• The inactive color swatch becomes the end color.

Gradient Modes

Linear

Click and drag to set the gradient direction. The drag defines the transition from the start color to the end color.

Radial

Click to place the center, then drag outward to set the radius. The gradient fades from the start color at the center to the end color toward the outside.

Transparency Lock

When Transparency Lock is enabled on the active raster layer, the Gradient tool respects it:

• The gradient only affects pixels that already have opacity on the layer.
• Fully transparent areas stay transparent.
• This applies to both Linear and Radial gradients.

Use this when you want to recolor or shade existing painted content without spilling into empty transparent regions of the layer.

Clip Gradient

The toolbar includes a Clip Gradient toggle:

• Enabled: Limits the gradient to the dragged region.
• Disabled: Lets the gradient extend across the full current bounding box.

In practice:

• A clipped linear gradient is limited to the span you dragged.
• A clipped radial gradient is limited to the circle you dragged out.
• With clipping disabled, both modes can be used to wash the entire bbox with a full gradient transition.

Practical Examples

• Use Linear for sky fades, shadow ramps, and broad directional lighting.
• Use Radial for vignettes, glows, spotlights, and soft falloff around a focal point.
• Enable Transparency Lock when you want the gradient to stay inside existing painted pixels.
• Disable Clip Gradient when you want a full-bbox color transition.
• Keep Clip Gradient enabled when you only want to affect a localized area.

Summary

The Gradient tool is a raster-only canvas tool for painting linear and radial color transitions. Use it when you want soft blends between your FG and BG colors, use Transparency Lock to keep the effect inside existing opaque pixels, and use Clip Gradient to decide whether the effect stays local or fills the full bbox.