Create Custom Color Ramps with QGIS

Let me show you how to create a custom

color map, color ramp in QGIS. This is

open source options. We're going to

color that tutorial. Let's go ahead and

get started. You can see here I have a

relative elevation model added in. I'm

going to explain relative elevation

models in a future video, but right now

I'm going to show you how I can create

some custom symbology for this raster

layer. So, I'm going to activate my

layer over here. Just make sure it's

active. I'm going to come over and

change from single band gray to single

band pseudo color. Now here we have the

default one of the defaults of turbo

ramp selected.

I have options down here. If I click on

this arrow, I can now come down to

create new color ramp and I can select a

gradient, color presets, random. I want

to do a gradient. Most of these ramps

here are going to be gradients and I

want a gradient also. And when I do

that, it's going to pop up this dialogue

here. And you can see it gives me a

simple ramp that goes from a darker

green to a lighter green. And you can

see that darker green over here in the

table of contents is where lower values

are and the lighter green is for higher

values. Now, it's very, very easy to

adjust this color. So, let's say I want

to go from a color like maybe blue. I

can just double click on this, click on

this color here, uh, or drop down from

here to change it. And I can bring this

over to

uh,

a blue color that I like.

And then I can come over and change

this. Maybe this is going to uh,

come over to something like green.

And we could throw a green color in

there like this. and choose the shade of

green that we like.

Something like that. Okay. And now uh we

can click okay. And you can see that

color ramp is applied to our map. But

what if we don't like that? What if we

want to make some changes? Well, now we

can click on the color ramp. If we just

click on this ramp in the layer styling

panel, if we just click on the ramp,

we'll bring this back up.

And now we have the option to add

another stop. So I can come over here

and I can double click and it will add

another stop here and I can change the

color of this stop. So let's say I want

to make this come over to something um

and maybe want to fade into like a

whitish color, you know, a lighter blue,

something like this. We can add that

there.

And now we can add another color here if

we want to. We can make this uh maybe a

tan color.

Something like that. We can add another

stop here

that puts us into

uh maybe a more brown color

like that. Okay. And now from here we

can also adjust where these stops occur.

So, we can drag this up,

can drag this up, and we can drag this

up. So, we can adjust exactly where

those breaks are going to occur. Uh, and

that gives us this kind of custom ramp

here. Now, let's click okay.

And we can see that that's been applied

um based on our preferences. So, we can

see how that lines up with this relative

elevation model. Now, an important thing

with the relative elevation model is

adjusting our max, minimum, and maximum

values here. So, I'm going to come over

and give this a value of about 15. And

this is going to really highlight our

river channels.

And I'm going to slide down and give

this a value of about5.

Maybe we'll even change this to one.

And so here you can start to see those

river channels get highlighted a little

more. If I can zoom in on the

appropriate channels,

it's kind of interesting the way this is

occurring.

Our negative one is still has some green

in it. So let's go back to our to here.

Let's change our color one. So if we

click here

and we copy this HTML notation

and we come here and we paste that

color, now we've updated that ramp. So

the lower value should be correct. And

there we can see those river channels

pop out a little more. Uh and we can see

those valley bottoms pop out

with our streamlines. Now, the thing you

might want to do is get a little more

variation in those valley bottoms. So,

one way we can do this is by decreasing

this value to 10,

which might not be a huge change. We can

decrease this a little to five. And

there we start to see a little more of

that pop out. Um,

we can also

let me just adjust this back to five.

You can see that we have some low points

away from our channels which is causing

some of this to look the way it is. But

there you see how we can adjust those

values to give us that landscape effect.

Now we can also bring this back to uh

our full range of values by going -21 I

believe was about 623

and you can see how that comes back and

gives us our original values again. Now

if you want to save this that's very

easy to do. Um

we click come we click our drop down

here and we click save color ramp.

That's going to bring this up. Um we get

a destination to our project styles. Uh

we can give it a name which I will call

blue uh

tan

brown green.

We can add some tags like colorful

or topography.

Uh this is for topography and we can add

it to our favorites and we can click

save.

Now let's see if we can go access this

again. So we have that. Let's turn on um

let's turn let's just try to adjust this

one with that color ramp. Our Henry

Creek merge.

Now we can come down to our color ramps

and we can click all color ramps.

We don't see it in there.

At least I don't think we see it in

there.

So the way we access this

is we are going um

to

Right click here. Go to properties.

Open our properties dialogue here. And

now we'll go to symbology.

Okay. So, I had a slight issue with the

way I saved this. We're going to close

out of here. Let's just cancel that.

Let's come back to our Henry Forkm.

We'll just turn that on. If we go to our

color ramp,

and when we save this color ramp, let's

save it to our default. And if we name

this

test for now, we can change this again

to topography. And we can click save.

And now let's turn this off. Let's go

back to our Henry Creek merge. Let's

come down our dropdown. If we go to all

color ramps, you can see we have test

right here in our list now. And now we

can click on that and it applies that to

our uh to an existing raster. You can

see this raster here is symbolized to

have uh some transparency. Uh so we can

see the hill shade beneath it. Uh but

there you go. That's how you can create

that custom color ramp in QGIS to give

your maps that specific flare. Check out

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