Gradient effect renders background with 2-3 more colors seamlessly integrated with each other. It looks much better than one-tone solid color and gives more professional look to your photoshop creations. After you have decided on which colors should be part of your gradient style, checkout following steps.
Add Gradient effect to shapes
1. Open Photoshop and goto File > New, then click OK. You will get blank canvas (white or transparent) as per your selection from open dialog box.
2. Right click on Custom Shape Tool and then select Rectangle Tool (or any other shape as per requirement) to make shape on the canvas.
3. Now using mouse draw a rectangle shape on the canvas.
4. Right Click on fx icon under layers tab at bottom-right part of the window. Then left click on Gradient Overlay option.
5. In the Gradient Overlay settings dialog box, click on drop down box and select gradient color styles of your choice.
You can click through individual gradient styles and even change color of any pre-loaded style. There are other advanced options under styling drop down box. You can also change the direction of gradient styling using rotate option. Use your creatively to add gradient style effect to any shape in photoshop.