If you feel a little creative, but you’ve been staring at your blank canvas for too long, I encourage you to have a little fun with Gradients! There are so many fun techniques you can use with these to create stunning digital art, that you’ll seriously never run out of kicks from these, if you’re anything like me!
This tutorial should be fun for anyone, regardless of your experience level. It will work with PS or Elements, although your options in Elements will look a bit different.
Let’s start this out by having a look at your Gradient Tool 
and its options.
File > New, and let’s get going. Choose your Gradient Tool. Your Options are across the top of the screen. That first block is showing a foreground > background gradient.
This is a very useful one and I find myself using it often for various things. All of the objects to the left were made with a white > black gradient within various selections!
For now, though, let’s have a look at some colorful options.
Click that black > white rectangle to bring up your Gradient Editor. I tend to play with rainbows a lot, so mine is pretty colorful.
As you click on the various gradients, you can see how they are made in the bar below. You’ll see both Color Stops and Opacity stops.
Choose any Gradient and play around with the Color Stops and the Opacity Stops. You control the color with the Color Picker at the bottom of this Editor box.
Click anywhere below the Gradient strip and you can add a Color Stop. What happens if you have two Color Stops right next to each other? Try it!
Here’s a Gradient I made for creating a rainbow. I have different opacities for different areas of the rainbow.
I made this image using this rainbow Gradient and the Diamond Gradient Style.
The Styles are called Linear, Radial, Angle, Reflected, and Diamond.
Tip: If you create a Gradient you love, you can save it! Once it’s made, click the New button and name it.
PS adds these to the very bottom of your window, but you can move it into another folder, if you like. Right-click in the list and make a new folder for your new Gradients.
I’m going to walk you through how I made my title image. While you’re following me, please, please do something other than what I’m doing. You’re going to learn by exploring, and that’s what this is about!
I began with a plain white Background. Make a New Layer. (No real reason; just do it.)
Choose or make a Gradient. I made this rainbow Gradient with red on each end. 
I used the Angle Gradient option and Difference Mode.
Next, I made little pulls of the Gradient Tool just about a centimeter long. I started in the upper left and pulled toward the opposite corner. Your results will be different, as mine are, every time I try this!
I did this one following a curve. And this is just one tiny technique, using one of a million possible Gradients, using one of the Styles, and using one of the Blending Modes.
And this is doing it all on one Layer, too! You can get into many fun adventures by combining layers of Gradient art using the Layer Blending Modes.
Next, we’ll explore Gradient Layers. What I’m talking about is a layer on which you’ve put a gradient.
So what’s the big deal with this? You can make really cool stuff with Gradient Layers! Let’s do one.
Get going.
- File > New. 1000 x 1000 is a good size.
- Make a new layer by pressing the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette.
- Choose the Gradient Tool
. Make any gradient in your Gradient Editor. Choose a shape option in the Options Bar. 
- For now, set your Mode in the Options Bar to Normal.
- Layer, tool, options, colors… Check! Now drag your gradient across the canvas.
Make another Gradient Layer
- Repeat the same steps as above on another layer.
- Have a look at the Layers palette. You should have a Background and then two different Gradient Layers.
- Click the top gradient layer in the layers palette. Click on the word Normal just above it.
- There, you can scroll through all of the amazing possibilities for blending these two gradient layers together. Try them all and choose your favorite.
This is the Layers Palette for the gradation image I made just above it. In the image below with the dog Bailey, I am using this gradation as a background.
Tip: Label your layers with what they are and what you did to them. In this layers palette of mine, I can see the gradient in the thumbnails, but I can tell quickly what I did, if I label the top layer Luminosity.
That’s just an itty bitty taste of the amazing gradients you can make. Here are a few that I’ve done using gradients I’ve created.
I have a Gallery of images that I’ve made using these techniques. Have a look!
For more on this, have a look at my Archived Amazing Gradients Tutorial.
I hope you’ve had fun making some Amazing Gradients! Send me something you’ve made!