Photoshop Gradients are a good way to bring a nice effect to your photos,art or for that matter any image that you are manipulating or drawing in Photoshop. Gradients let you make some pretty nice background as well as other subtle and glamorous effects to your photos ,that are other wise are hard to implement.

Since this is first posts on Photoshop Gradients ,lets have a quick look for the sake of new Photoshop users on how to use the Gradients tool in Photoshop.

Note:-You can use the gradient tool in a lot of ways but here I’ll only be showing how to add the new gradients to you Photoshop installation and how to use it on a background.

How to Install Gradients in Photoshop

Step 1- First of all download any of the Photoshop  gradients pack from below and then open the zip folder with Winrar or WinZip.

Note:- Some of the Gradients that we’ll see here may not be in a zip folder ,in that case you do not need to have WinZip or Winrar to explore these Gradients.

Step 2- In the most recent version of different operating systems ,all you need to do is double click on the .grd file that you downloaded to install new gradients in Photoshop.

The indication for this being working is that as you double click on this gradient file ,Photoshop will start to load these gradients for you.

In case you happen to have problems with this method then move on to step 3 or else see how to use the Gradients in Photoshop.

Step 3- Place your gradients file (.grd) in the ‘Presets’ directory of your main Photoshop program folder, under the subdirectory ‘Gradients’. The default installation path for Photoshop CS4, gradients should be saved in this directory: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS4\Presets\Gradients\

How to use Gradient in Photoshop

Step 1- Once you have installed the gradients ,all you need to do is open Photoshop and make a new document.

Step 2- Now to access your gradients tool can either use the gradients via the Blending options or directly selecting the gradients tool from the Paint bucket tool pallet.

For convenience of new users I am discussing how to use the gradients via the blending options.

Step 3 – Go  to your layer pallet and select the layer you want to use the gradient on.(You can blend specific areas of a layer by selecting the area by using any of the selection tools).

Now right click on the layer that you selected and go to blending options (2nd in the row)

Step 4 – A new window will pop up and ,in this window go to Gradient Overlay and click on it.

Make sure you have the preview button checked ,as this will give you preview of how your image will look if use the gradient that you select.

Another window will open up here you can select the gradient that you want to use in your picture,and make whatever tweaks you want to.

That’s all for how to install and use gradients in Photoshop.

Here are some of the Free gradients for Photoshop that you will find useful over time .

15 Red and Green Gradients For Photoshop

Download  Gradients

Colorful Green Gradients

Download  Gradients

53 Tri-color  Gradients For Photoshop By Adoralyna

Download  Gradients

Colorful Bokeh Free Gradients For Photoshop

Download  Gradients

5 Beautiful Gradients For Photoshop

Download  Gradients

16 Autumn Gradients For Photoshop

A set of PSD gradients based on the colors of the lovely season of Autumn.

Download  Gradients

15 Photoshop Sky Gradients

These are really nicely made Photoshop Gradients that can be used to put sky/clouds according to the time of the day in the photo that you are making or manipulating in Photoshop.

Download  Gradients

54 Apple Style Photoshop Gradients

Nicely made Photoshop gradients that are based on the color combinations of Apple.

Download  Gradients

75 Photoshop Gradients

Download  Gradients

9 Photoshop Gradients of  tangy colors

Download  Gradients

55 Web 2 style Photoshop Gradients.

Nice set of Photoshop Gradients that can be handy when making colorful images in Photoshop.

Download  Gradients

42 Photoshop Gradients.

A set of 42 linear gradients for Photoshop .

Download  Gradients

25 Photoshop Gradients Inspired by the Movie Bourne Supremacy

Download  Gradients

30 Smooth Web 2 Style Gradients For Photoshop

Download  Gradients

20 Soft green Gradients

Download  Gradients

30 Vibrant Photoshop Gradients

A set of 30 Photoshop Gradients with a mix of bright and dark colors.

Download  Gradients

50 Multicolored Photoshop Gradients

Download  Gradients

9 web 2.0 Style Dark Photoshop Gradients

Download  Gradients

9 Web 2.0 Style Bright  Gradients

Download  Gradients

18 Photoshop Gradients

Download  Gradients

12 Colorful Photoshop Gradients

Download  Gradients

63 Simple Gradients For Photoshop

Download  Gradients