Trouble with Gradient Tool

[jaygro]

Hi Everyone,

I cannot figure out what I am doing wrong. I know it has to be something very simple. I started using Affinity Photo for very basic editing about a year ago. I am having a lot of trouble trying to get the Gradient Tool to make transparent gradients. 95% of the time the result I get is a White to Black Gradient. If I have a whole layer selected, the whole layer becomes white to black. If I have a Shape selected the whole shape becomes white to black. I have watched tutorial videos and follow step by step but still end up getting this black to white. There has to be some obvious options that is on that I am missing. I have attached some screenshots as examples. Thanks for your input!

[Komatös]

Hi, @jaygro

There are several possibilities.

The first is to create a rectangle of the appropriate size with the rectangle tool. Select gradient as the fill type and set black and white for the start and end.
Click with the right mouse button on the rectangle layer in the layer palette and select Rasterize to Mask.
You're done.

The second option would be to create a fill layer instead of a rectangle.

[v_kyr]

One quick Gradient example via another rectangle usage ...

 

[Pšenda]

17 minutes ago, Komatös said:

create a rectangle

... or fx

[RichardMH]

Is it just a matter of switching to Soft Light blend mode?

[walt.farrell]

From the white canvas (rather than checkerboard) perhaps the document was not created with the Transparent Background option selected.

[jaygro]

Thanks for all the input. I'm going to try these. Just to clarify... I was trying to get the arms holding the iPads to blend into the white back ground instead of having the sharp cutoff. My thought was to use the gradient tool to make the arms fade into the white. I'll let you know how it goes. Thank you!!