Gradient Tool

toolgradient

The Gradient tool is found in the Tools Panel. Left-Click dragging this tool over the active portion of the canvas will draw out the current gradient. If there is an active selection then, similar to the Fill Tool, the paint action will be confined to the selection’s borders.

Tool Options

Shape:
Linear

This will draw a straight gradient.

Linear Gradient.

Left: None. Middle: Forwards. Right: Alternating.

Bilinear

This will draw a straight gradient, mirrored along the axis.

../../_images/bilinear.png

Left: None. Middle: Forwards. Right: Alternating.

Radial

This will draw the gradient from a center, defined by where you start the stroke.

../../_images/radial.png

Left: None. Middle: Forwards. Right: Alternating.

Square

This will draw the gradient from a center in a square shape, defined by where you start the stroke.

../../_images/square.png

Left: None. Middle: Forwards. Right: Alternating.

Conical

This will wrap the gradient around a center, defined by where you start the stroke.

../../_images/conical.png

Left: None. Middle: Forwards. Right: Alternating.

Conical-symmetric

This will wrap the gradient around a center, defined by where you start the stroke, but will mirror the wrap once.

../../_images/conical_symmetric.png

Left: None. Middle: Forwards. Right: Alternating.

Spiral

This will draw the gradient spiral from a center, defined by where you start the stroke.

../../_images/spiral.png

Left: None. Middle: Forwards. Right: Alternating.

Reverse Spiral

This will draw the gradient spiral from a center, defined by where you start the stroke, but direction is flipped perpendicular to the direction of stroke.

../../_images/reverse_spiral.png

Left: None. Middle: Forwards. Right: Alternating.

Shaped

This will shape the gradient depending on the selection or layer.

../../_images/shaped.png
Repeat:
None

This will extend the gradient into infinity.

Forward

This will repeat the gradient into one direction.

Alternating

This will repeat the gradient, alternating the normal direction and the reversed.

Antialias threshold

Controls how smooth is the border between repetitions.

  • A value equal to 0 means there is no smoothing. The border is aliased.

  • A value greater than 0 tells Krita how many pixels to each side of the border should be smoothed.

../../_images/antialias_threshold.png

Left: 0. Middle: 0.5. Right: 1.

Reverse

Reverses the direction of the gradient.

Dither

Neu in Version 5.0.

8 bits of color depth is not enough depth to make a truly smooth gradient. This option alleviates this by adding blue noise style dithering to gradients in 8 bit.

Example showing gradients with and without dithering.

In the above example, the topleft is a subtle gradient without dithering. The bottom left is with blue noise dithering. The right two examples are the same as the left, but with a contrast filter applied so the blue noise dithering pattern becomes obvious.