Gradient Map

📖 Tool Introduction

A gradient map is one of the most cinematic colour-grading techniques found in professional retouching software: instead of shifting the red, green and blue channels separately, it first collapses the whole photograph into a luminance map, then stamps your chosen colours onto the darkest pixels, the mid-tones and the brightest pixels. This tool brings that workflow straight into your browser. You upload an image, pick a two-stop or three-stop mode, use three colour pickers to choose a shadow colour, a mid colour and a highlight colour, and click Apply map; the entire tonal range of the photo is then redistributed along the colour band you defined. For the classic teal-and-orange movie look, set the shadows to a cool blue and the highlights to a warm orange; for a retro cyber vibe, pair deep purple with bright yellow. The intensity slider lets you slide freely between a full colour replacement and a subtle wash of tint, and below one hundred percent the result blends back toward the original picture, so you can keep the look luminous rather than overcooked. Every colour interpolation is computed pixel by pixel, a preview bar shows the gradient direction as you pick, oversized photos are automatically downscaled to a twelve hundred pixel sample to balance speed and quality, and the finished result exports as a single PNG. The reason this technique feels so cinematic is that it preserves the light and shadow structure of your photograph while completely replacing its palette: skin tones keep their modelling, clouds keep their volume, and only the emotional temperature changes. With the three-stop mode you get even finer control, because the middle colour anchors the mid greys and prevents a harsh two-tone split; drag it toward cyan for a cold look or toward warm sand for a golden-hour feel. Because every edit is rebuilt from the original pixels, you can experiment with as many colour combinations as you like without accumulating quality loss, and the live preview bar lets you audition the gradient before you commit. The tool needs no account, no upload and no install, so you can grade a snapshot on a borrowed laptop just as easily as on your own workstation.

✨ Key Features

• Two-stop or three-stop mode: map dark to light, or add a mid tone for finer gradation
• Free colour picking: shadow, mid and highlight stops are fully customisable
• Intensity blend: a 0-100% slider controls how much mapped colour mixes with the original
• Live preview bar: the gradient direction updates the moment you pick a colour
• Per-pixel interpolation: Rec.601 luminance drives smooth, banding-free transitions
• Local export: everything runs in the browser and one click downloads a PNG

📝 How to Use

1. Drop your image onto the dashed area, or click to choose a file
2. Choose a two-stop or three-stop gradient mode
3. Use the pickers to set the shadow, mid and highlight colours
4. Drag the mapping intensity and click Apply map to preview the look
5. Click Download image once you are happy with the result

⚠️ Notes

• Tonal logic: this tool maps by luminance and does not preserve the original colours
• Mid colour: it only applies in three-stop mode and is ignored in two-stop mode
• Intensity tip: for portraits stay around 60-90% to keep skin detail
• Sampling: images larger than 1200px are downscaled proportionally
• Privacy: your photo never leaves the browser, so private pictures are safe