What it does
Recolors the image by mapping its dark and light areas onto a gradient you design.
Most color tools nudge the colors an image already has. A gradient map replaces them wholesale, using only luminance to decide what goes where, which is why it can turn a photograph into a two-color screen print or a night scene in one move. The image supplies the structure; the gradient supplies the palette.
The craft is in the gradient. Two stops make a duotone; a dark-to-light ramp with a hue twist in the middle makes a film grade; hard neighboring stops posterize the image into flat bands. Where the stops sit matters as much as their colors, because pushing a stop toward the shadows or highlights decides how much of the frame each color claims.
This effect gives the gradient a real editor: up to eight stops, positioned freely, with control over the input range it reads and how the gradient repeats across it. Tiling the gradient turns tonal ramps into contour-like color bands, a look that has no analog equivalent. On video, the map holds steady while the footage moves through it, so a grade defined once follows every frame.
Signature looks
Duotone poster
Two stops, ink on paper. The Spotify-era portrait treatment: one color owns the shadows, the other owns the light.
Midnight grade
A deep blue floor rising through teal into a warm highlight, the two-tone cinematic grade built as one gradient.
Contour bands
A repeating gradient tiled across the tonal range, slicing the image into flat bands of color like a topographic map.
Try it on your own footage
This effect runs live in the Modulate editor, free with no signup — or start from the free tool page for a guided setup.
Common questions
What does a gradient map do?
It maps brightness to color: the darkest pixels take the color at one end of a gradient, the brightest take the other end, and everything between lands proportionally along it. The original hues are discarded; only the tonal structure of the image survives, recolored.
How is a gradient map different from a color grade or LUT?
A LUT adjusts existing colors toward a look while keeping the image recognizably itself. A gradient map is more radical: it throws the original colors away and rebuilds the image from luminance alone. Used subtly it works as a grade; used boldly it becomes graphic design.
How do I make a duotone with a gradient map?
Use a two-stop gradient: pick the shadow color and the highlight color, then adjust the stop positions to balance how much of the image each one covers. High-contrast source images make the cleanest duotones because the tonal separation is already there.
Does a gradient map work on video?
Yes, and it is a natural fit: the mapping is defined once and every frame passes through it, so the grade stays perfectly consistent across motion. In Modulate the Gradient Map effect runs live in the editor with a visual gradient editor, and the stops themselves can be keyframed.
Related effects
Invert colors
Flips colors to their opposites, like a photo negative. Invert everything, just the brightness, or individual channels.
Posterize effect
Collapses smooth gradients into a few flat tonal bands for a screen-printed, cel-shaded look. Band per channel or by brightness, with a gamma bias to push the steps toward shadows or highlights.
Hue shift
Rotates every color around the color wheel, and can keep the colors cycling over time.