Hello! My name is Liz Staley and I’m a long-time user of Clip Studio Paint (I started using the program back when it was known as Manga Studio 4!). I was a beta-tester on the Manga Studio 5 program and for Clip Studio Paint, and I have written three books and several video courses about the program. Many of you probably know my name from those books, in fact. I write weekly posts on Graphixly.com and on CSP Tips, so be sure to come back every week to learn more Clip Studio Tips and Tricks from me!

Gradient maps are one of the coolest and least utilized features of Clip Studio Paint, in my opinion! These layer adjustments can be used to change the colors of your existing illustrations or to add color to a black and white image! Let’s learn how!

In this article we will cover the following topics:

Using Gradient Maps

Adding a Custom Gradient to a Set

Let's go!

Using Gradient Maps

For this example we’ll need a grayscale image, so I made a grayscale version of one of my illustrations. 

By the way, if you have trouble with getting good contrast on your colored images, this is a great way to fix that issue! When working in black and white it’s easier to see the contrast between your light and dark areas.

I’ve separated my grayscale image into layers like skin, hair, eyes, etc to make the gradient map process easier. 

To add a gradient map, click on Layer - New Correction Layer - Gradient Map. 

Gradient maps take a gradient and “map” it out to the different areas of the image. So the darkest areas will map to the darkest part of the gradient, and so on. 

Any gradient set that you have installed in Clip Studio will show under the Gradient Set dropdown. You can find lots of gradient sets in the Assets library, where other CSP users have made gradients for everything from skin tones to eyes to vintage effects and everything in between! The default gradient tools are located in the “Tool (read only)” set. 

I’m going to start with my skin tone layer so I clicked on the Skintone gradient set that I downloaded from the Assets library a while ago. You can find this same skintone set at the link below.

https://assets.clip-studio.com/en-us/detail?id=1925986 

After choosing a gradient that I liked, I decided that I wanted to change a few of the colors in the gradient just a little bit. You can do this without changing the gradient permanently by simply clicking on one of the little “^” marks under the gradient. This is called a node and each node is tied to a certain color. You will see the color for the node you clicked on in the “Specified color” box indicated in the screenshot below. Click on the color box to change the specified color to whatever you like!

Once you like the colors, click OK to create the gradient map adjustment layer. If you have the pieces of your illustration on different layers then you can simply use a clipping mask to apply the color to only the area that you want. Simply make sure that the gradient map is over the layer or layer folder you want to apply it to in the Layer palette. Then right-click on the gradient map layer and go to Layer Settings -Clip to Layer Below.

Now your gradient map layer will show only on the contents of the layer below it.

If you don’t have your character shading broken out into layers you can use the layer mask that gets created with the Gradient Map layer to mask out any areas that shouldn’t be changed by that gradient map layer.

Adding a Custom Gradient to a Set

Sometimes you just can’t find a pre-made gradient that fits your illustration. That’s okay because we can make a custom gradient very easily! In my case I have a downloaded set of eye gradients that I think are beautiful, but my current layer for the eyes includes the white of the eye and not just the iris and pupils. 

To start my new eye gradient I’m going to select a gradient that’s already in the eye color gradient set that I have. Doesn’t matter which one because we’ll be creating a copy and making our own gradient!

Click on “Duplicate selected gradient” below the gradient set window. 

Now I’m going to start clicking on each node of the gradient and then click on the box by “Specified Color” on the right side of the Gradient Map options to select a new color. When doing this I like to go back and forth between a few colors while paying attention to what areas are changing so that I can more accurately choose the right color for the gradient node.

Since we want to save this gradient to use later, be sure to click the “Replace Saved Gradient” icon after you’re done choosing colors, otherwise the gradient will go back to the default settings once you click off of it!

Here’s the gradient I ended up with for my character’s eyes. 

And here’s the finished product!

Remember that if you want to try out different colors, you can do that easily by double-clicking on the thumbnail of the gradient map layer in the Layer palette window. Then you can choose another gradient and try out lots of color combinations!

Conclusion

Gradient maps can be a great way to quickly add colors to shaded grayscale images, create different color thumbnails for a larger piece, and play with colors for concept art as well! Since they’re non-destructive you can change the colors, delete layers, change blending modes, and more with just a few clicks!

For more information on CLIP Studio Paint, please visit https://www.clipstudio.net/en or https://graphixly.com