Creating Custom Transparent Gradients in Canva: Beginner's Tutorial [2023]

after watching this tutorial you'll be able to create custom gradients and most importantly gradients that fade to transparency I'll also give you five tips on how to use these gradients creatively on your design so you can create visuals like this gradients are pretty cool to spice up your creations and make them stand out from the crowd and the coolest thing is that every single step that I'm going to show you in this video you can follow it and create it completely free income so if you guys are ready for this tutorial let's go to my computer let me start by the basics I'm gonna show you how to create custom gradients and I'm gonna show you as well the different style of gradients that you can create in Camp if you're here to learn how to create gradients fading to transparency I'm gonna show you how to do that in tip number three so stay watching here I am in canva.com you're going to create any kind of canva documents I'm gonna go for a social media I love to create Instagram posts so let's go for this option right here I'm gonna click on create blank so canva takes me directly to the editor we have a blank page on our design and I would like to start by creating a gradient in this background so by having the background selected I'm gonna click on my white page and then click on this square right here that says background color this is going to open the color window and from here we are going to select the this plus icon right here this will open this little window that give us access to the color settings at the moment we are under the tab that's called solid color but next to it we have another tab called gradient we're gonna click here from here we will be able to create our custom gradients pay attention to this page because my gradient is being applied to the background of this design so how do we add our own colors to this gradient we have here two options and we can click on any of these squares to change the color so I want to change this white for this light pink right here so I can either go and check the hex code you will see that when I hover on this color you will have the hex code in here and then we go to the plus icon we go to the gradient tab click on the color that you want to change and then you can enter the head xcode from here you can also play around with these settings to find a color yourself or you can use the Color Picker to select any color inside your screen I'm gonna go for this blue right here and for the second color I'm gonna go for the light shade of my blue once you have your colors in here you can select from five different gradient Styles so we have these three styles that are linear gradients and these two that are circular gradients so you can click on any of these thumbnails to see which gradient style you prefer there is something cool here that I found a couple of days ago and I really love and it is that you can change the direction of your gradients by just switching these colors and you can do it by dragging the color to the position where you want so as you can see when I moved this light shade to the left we can see the color now on the left and I'm gonna move this one now so pay attention to the sheet on the middle of the screen and as simple as that you can change the direction on your gradient I'm going to show you the same trick with these circular gradients so you can see it again and like this you can have different styles you can also add more than just two colors so by clicking on this plus icon you can add another color and play around with the style of your gradient so you can move the colors around and see if you can get a really cool combination or a really cool styling here number one on a gradients on your designs is by adding them on the background so as you can see you can simply select the background on your design and then add the gradient and this can spice Your Design up because you can go from a flat design to something that can really stand out from the crowd relax tip number two on how to use these gradients in canva is by using them inside shapes if you didn't know we can now instead of just selecting one color for a simple shape we can add gradients to them so let me add a shape by clicking on elements then I'm gonna go to lines and shapes see all you can select any shape that you see in here I'm gonna go for a heart shape and then by going to color I can follow the same process so I can go to the plus icon go to gradient and then as you can see I already have a gradient in my heart I can select any of these different styles gonna go for this one and play around with the colors I think this one is already looking great and the cool tip in here is not only that you can add gradients to shapes but that you can change the shape of your element with just one click so let's say that I have this heart right here but I'm thinking that maybe this one won't work really well with my design instead of going to elements and having to find another shape and add the gradient and you know like do all of these steps I can simply go to the toolbar on top select shape and select the shape that I want so let's say that this time I want to use this shape right here I just need to click one time and with just one click I change my heart to this shape you can click on any other shapes to play around and see which one looks better on your design this feature is relatively new in canva and I actually tend to forget that this button is here that's why I thought it would be nice to remind you if you already knew about this button that this option is available in canva and also for those of you who didn't know that this existed income but let me know in the comments I would love to know that you guys are learning something new here today foreign can help guide the viewer's eye by creating a sense of flow or movement and I would say that we can create this especially with the gradients that fade to transparency so now we are going to see how to do that I'm gonna go to uploads because I have a photo that I think is going to work really well with this tip so let me go here this is the photo that I want to use I just drag it to the background and now I'm gonna add a gradient on top of my photo to help guide the viewer's eye into our lovely faces I think this photo is really great but we have a lot of elements on the surroundings so I want to bring the attention to the middle of this image go to elements and let's bring a square shape we are already inside line and shapes so that's why we can see all these elements right here so by clicking on the shape tape you will bring it inside the design if you are not inside line and shapes you will see something like this and you just need to click on this Square to bring it to the design let me close this tab we don't need it anymore and now let's add a gradient with transparency to this Square let's go to the color section click on the plus icon go to gradients and now let's add colors to our gradients this time I think I'm gonna go for a pink and then a yellow and we need a transparent color or transparency into our gradient so I'm gonna bring another color to this gradient by clicking on this plus icon and this time I'm gonna play around with this slider to make my color transparent so by moving this slider to the left you will see that my gradient has some transparency see on this color that we have right here I'm gonna change the position of this color so you can see clearly where the transparency is happening so at the moment I moved my transparent color to the left and you can see it on the gradient here in the middle I'm using the style number four the circular gradient and let me stretch my shape and see if this transparency is working I'm gonna go again and keep adjusting my gradient so I can see a little bit more of our faces so I think I'm gonna add even more transparency to the middle of this gradient and I can do it by adding another color and this time I'm gonna move the slider all the way to the left until we see zero percent of the color and move this transparent square or transparent color all the way to the left now I can see more of our faces because we have more transparency going on in the middle of this gradient I can keep playing around with the transparency so we can see more of our faces but we still see a little glow of the color I'm gonna also add more transparency to this pink right here and I think I have achieved something pretty interesting in here as you can see in this example a simple gradient can guide your viewer eye to a section of the design in this case it will be the middle of the image this can also help you create a more branded visual or a branded photo in this case because you can add the colors of your brand in this gradient something to have into consideration in case that you want to change the photo that you are using on this design is that you need to move your gradients in order to change the photos so in this case let's say that I want to change the photo for this one I need to move my gradient to the side bring the photo to my design and then move again my gradient here of course the style of the gradient is not working for this particular photo so you will go again to color go to the gradient option and change the style of your gradient the fourth tip on how to use gradients on your designs especially gradients with transparency is by using them behind text let's take this as an example I have a text on my photo at the bottom of the photo but it's kind of difficult to spot kind of difficult to read because we have a lot of elements in the photo so we're gonna use these gradients with transparency in order to make the text easy to read I'm gonna bring a square shape to my design by pressing the key R and now let's add a gradient to this shape I'm gonna go to color we already know the steps go to the plus icon gradient I'm going to change the colors and add one with transparency I have three colors right here I have a solid color this one has a hundred percent of color the second one is 53 you can leave it to 50 if you want and then the last one is at zero I'm gonna change the style because I want to have more of a solid color next to the text and then the rest of the image can be more transparent so I want a gradient that is going from one corner to the other like this one and then I'm gonna rotate my shape so we can see more of the solid color on this corner now I'm gonna stretch my shape now we need to bring the text in front of our gradient let's go to position let's go to layers this time so we can see clearly what we are doing in here we have the photo at the bottom we have the text in the middle of the photo and the gradient and I need to bring the gradient behind my text so I'm going to bring this one behind and like this I can make my text appear in front of the gradient Now by having the gradient selected I'm gonna go to the color option again and I'm gonna see if I can play around a little bit more with this transparency so we can see a little bit more of the photo so I think I can play a little bit more with the second color so maybe let's bring the transparency to 30. I think this is already looking good of course this will depend on what you need to create you can play around with the transparencies as I told you if you want to have a corner that is completely completely transparent and not have any shade of pink on this area you can bring another transparent background and as you can see you have more transparency on the gradient or if you want to have more of the color happening on the image bring more color to the second color so instead of 30 you can go up to 80 or more it depends on what you need [Music] if you are into posting creative photos this tip is for you let me show you how to add depth and dimension to your designs using these gradients let's go to elements and this time we are going to photos select seal I'm gonna scroll down to find a photo that I like you can select any photo right here or you can also select a photo of your own if you are using a photo of your own you will need to go to uploads this is the photo that I'm gonna use today so I'll bring it to the background of my design and now let me add the photo one more time let's go back and this time we are going down to select a frame we're gonna bring this photo inside the frame so by dragging the photo and hovering on top of the frame you will bring the photo inside the frame now we're gonna go to shapes inside elements I'm going to select the circular shape this time I'm going to increase the size of this circular shape bring it to this corner and now I'm gonna add a gradient let's go to color the plus icon gradient and this time I'm gonna select colors available in this photo for the gradient so let's go to the first color I'm using the Color Picker I'm gonna use the color that we see in the background behind the woman and then for the second color I'm gonna use a purple or a pink or magenta I don't know which name do you want to give to this color but I would say magenta okay there you go now I'm gonna add transparency to the gray color and I think I'm gonna add one more transparent color to this gradient and put it all the way to the left now I'm gonna change this style for the first style that we see here on the left I'm gonna position my circle somewhere here and I'm going to duplicate it and bring the other circular shape on this corner I'm gonna rotate the circular shape until we see just a little section of our shaping here and then the shape will fade into transparency gonna bring it more to this corner and now to add even more depth to this design I'm going to select the photo in the background go to edit photo I'm gonna add the blur effect go back go to adjust and reduce the brightness on the photo and this will be the final result of this tape of adding Dimension or depth to your designs using gradients so we went from a simple flat photo like this one to something more creative and with more Dimension as this one now let me know which of these five design tips you are going to be using on your own designs and why if you enjoyed this tutorial and you want to keep learning tips on content creation I have a great tutorial for you with this video you'll see how easy it is to edit photos inside canva using AI also if you need to create content for Instagram I do suggest you follow my canva profile I have a lot of templates available for both canva free and canva pro so go and check out my profile I'm Gonna Leave the link in here I guess this is it for today I really hope that you enjoyed this video and hope to see you in the next one bye

Channel: Design with Canva

Views: 20,948

Keywords: canva tips, canva easy tutorial, canva for beginners, canva tutorial 2023, canva tips 2023, fade to transparent, custom gradients, fade to transparency, design tips, creative ideas, original designs, graphic design, gradient effects, creative techniques, design inspiration, Canva tips, gradient transitions, Canva hacks, design ideas, Canva tricks, design creativity, gradient tutorials, design hacks, gradient techniques, Canva design hacks, graphic design tips

Id: BWuVI-yCkyc

Length: 18min 2sec (1082 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 15 2023