Feature Request - Gaussian Gradient fill

[Andrew Mumford]

The problem :-

Seamlessly joining image's of very similar but nonetheless slightly different colors / intensities can be damn near impossible with mask's generated using the Linear Gradient tool.
In the Linear Gradient image note how "triangular" / abrupt the transition is at the extremes of the transitions - this sharp transition means that any slight differences on otherwise flat seamless images will always be visible.

The solution is simple - applying a Gaussian distribution function to the gradient results in the nice soft edges shown by the Gaussian Gradient image which will render joins invisible in a far wider range of cases.

The use case I'm thinking of is seamlessly panning and tiling images and/or blending focus stacks or exposure layers in images using gradient mask's

So before you go there, yes of course I can do editing filtering on the mask's after the fact but I'd much rather be able to see a live blend and perfect / adjust it while still editing the gradient.

Thx

Andrew Mumford

[Aammppaa]

Add a 50% grey point to the center of your gradient, and then adjust the fall off on either side to get more or less smoothing?

[Andrew Mumford]

"Add a 50% grey point to the center of your gradient, and then adjust the fall off on either side to get more or less smoothing?"

Way to many steps - let me rephrase, I would like to be able to set a preset gradient of "type" Gaussian distribution with default colours of white to black and be able to apply it as my default gradient simply and quickly whilst retaining the ability to adjust anchor points interactively ?!

[Aammppaa]

So do exactly that!

1. Set up the gradient (as I described above: white to black with a central mid grey point and the handles adjusted in towards the center to achieve an Gaussian-like gradiant).

2. Save the gradient in the Swatches panel and give it a name (perhaps "Ampa's Gaussian Gradient suggestion that I was perhaps too quick to dismiss").

Now you can use that gradient whenever and wherever you like, with zero setup…

1. Create your mask layer.

2. Drag out a gradient fill using the Gradient Tool.

3. Click your saved gradient in the Swatch panel.

4. Adjust to your liking.

This adds one additional click (step 3) which I think is no worse than selecting a gradient type if such a feature were added to the tool.

Hope that helps.

 

[Andrew Mumford]

As described this is not working for me ?

1. There is no "save function" in the Gradient dropdown swatches panel - perhaps there should be but OK I'll go to the global "Swatches" panel instead.

2. Every time I press the add button all I'm getting is a solid fill - no gradient, what am I missing here - the built in help doesn't really say anything about it as far as I can see ?

Thx

[Aammppaa]

Should work like this…

[Andrew Mumford]

Whenever I click the "Add current fill to palette" button, ctrl click or otherwise all I get is a "fill" named for the currently active colour ?

[Andrew Mumford]

This looks increasingly like a bug to me - it doesn't follow the behaviour you recorded, neither does it work according to the steps here, 

 

 

Comment's anyone ?

[Aammppaa]

Looks like you are on a Mac, where I am using Win10 - perhaps there is a bug on that system, but I have no way to test. Hopefully someone else can help?

Can you provide a recording of what you are doing?

Does it work in a new blank document?

Does it make any difference if you make an application swatch vs a document swatch?