The Secret Gradient Interpolation Method
The article discusses the Secret Gradient Interpolation Method used in Photoshop. It reveals that the 2026 version of Photoshop has introduced a new interpolation method called Smooth, which is not documented officially. The author aims to replicate Photoshop's rendering behavior for open-source tools by reverse engineering its algorithms.
- ▪The article is part of a series aimed at uncovering Photoshop's algorithms for rendering gradients and effects.
- ▪The new interpolation method, Smooth, is distinct from the previously used Perceptual method.
- ▪The author has reverse-engineered the algorithms without decompiling Photoshop, relying solely on finished images.
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Story provenance
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Record
| Original publisher | Ilia Malanin |
| Canonical URL | https://pastila.org/essays/intro-secret-gradient-interpolation/ |
| Publication time | Tue, 28 Apr 2026 12:48:49 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-04-28T12:54:31.957Z |
| Last seen | 2026-04-28T12:54:31.957Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | 7V6RoFk8U4lV |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
Rights status (four layers)
WeSearch handling by dimension
| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Introduction. The Secret Gradient Interpolation Method Essay photoshopreverse-engineeringgradients Also available in Russian Series: Photoshop Algorithms Arcana Part 1 of 2 Introduction. The Secret Gradient Interpolation Method Color Math: Inside Photoshop Gradients Next → Introduction This article opens the series “Photoshop Algorithms Arcana”, aimed at uncovering the algorithms Photoshop uses to render gradients, effects, adjustment layers, and more. Why? I’m building a tool that can render individual PSD/PSB layers and groups — with all effects intact — without requiring Photoshop. It turns out that information about Photoshop’s proprietary algorithms is incredibly scarce, and most existing approximations produce results that differ dramatically from what Photoshop actually renders.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at Ilia Malanin.
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