How to Use scale_fill_gradient2 in R for Color Gradients

2 min readNov 20, 2023

How to Use scale_fill_gradient2 in R for Color Gradients
Data Analysis

KeyPoints
scale_fill_gradient2 is a function in the ggplot2 package that creates a diverging color gradient for fill aesthetics.
fill aesthetic is an aesthetic that controls the color of the interior of a geometric object, such as a bar, a point, or a polygon.
diverging color gradient is a color gradient with three colors: one for low values, one for high values, and one for middle values. The colors usually diverge from the middle value, often white or gray.
scale_fill_gradient2 has several arguments that can customise the colors, midpoint, space, and gradient guide, such as low, high, mid, midpoint, space, na.value, guide, and aesthetics.
scale_fill_gradient2 can be applied to different types of plots, such as bar charts, histograms, and scatter plots, by using different geoms and aesthetics, such as geom_bar, geom_histogram, geom_point, x, y, and fill.
scale_fill_gradient2 can be used with other aesthetics, such as alpha, size, and shape, to add more dimensions and information to the plots by using the alpha, size, and shape arguments of the geom functions.
scale_fill_gradient2 can be used with other scales, such as scale_x_continuous, scale_y_continuous, and scale_color_gradient2, to modify the appearance and behaviour of the x, y, and color aesthetics, respectively, by using different arguments of the scale functions, such as limits, breaks, labels, trans, and guide.
scale_fill_gradient2 can be used with other themes, such as theme_minimal, theme_bw, and theme_classic, to modify the overall appearance of the plot, such as the background, grid lines, axis lines, fonts, and colors, by using the theme functions and the theme function.