HOW TO: Use PDN Gradient

For me, I have two ways to use Paint.Net gradient: one more set and the other more fluid and came in the plugin set from Kris Vandermotten at the Paint.Net forum but seems to be no longer available.

This was what I did from a tutorial I did:

As you can see, I am going to be using the colour codes that I added to my colour wheel for this tutorial.

I created a 300x300 canvas for this demonstration and added the primary colour to it.

Go to the tools and select the gradient tool.

In your upper toolbar, this line will pop up. Each of the gradients is shown there and they are do something different.

For this tutorial, I will only use linear (the first shown). with several different reflections.

Create your canvas, use your paint bucket to dump your colour, hold down the left mouse button and slide your cursor down the canvas. It will give you a linear colour change right away.

This is with no repeat:

This is with repeat wrapped:

This is with repeat reflected:

These all are created by pulling the cursor clear to the middle of the canvas (as shown by the small grey circles in each image).

However, the smaller the range you go in, the different your image will look. the one below is linear repeat reflected but look at how close the small grey circles are:

As you can see, each gives you a different look using this set method.

My second way (and my new preferred way) is what I call the fluid method.

Again, I created my canvas and dumped my colour but this time, I am going to my effects link in my upper toolbar, dropping down to render and finding gradient.

You will then be met with this lovely little box:

My, my! The most wonderful things can happen with this box! Moving each of these sliders affects different parts of your canvas colour to give you a different effect each time.

Without touching the midpoints or the dithering (not shown), the above image showed how I changed my sliders.

And this is what effect it had on my canvas.

As you can see, it has a much better gradient effect than the first, more set method. Now you see why I call this the fluid method!

Which method do you like best?