As you may know, CSS gradient are becoming more prevalent (and will be more so with IE10 now supporting them caniuse.com ). They're an useful way to have a repeating gradient background without the extra cost of a resource.

Our design team at Crafted have been good to provide these to me : the way they produce them is by using Colorzilla Gradient Editor. They usually take a screenshot of the gradient image and use the "Import from image" function, cleaning up in the editor if need be. You can - if you have a PSD file - slice the gradient directly and concisely also.

As an example, here's the code generated for a green gradient:

background: #9bc847; /* Old browsers */
/* IE9 SVG, needs conditional override of 'filter' to 'none' */
background: url(data:image/svg+xml;base64,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);
background: -moz-linear-gradient(top,  #9bc847 65%, #2ea815 65%); /* FF3.6+ */
background: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left bottom, color-stop(65%,#9bc847), color-stop(65%,#2ea815)); /* Chrome,Safari4+ */
background: -webkit-linear-gradient(top,  #9bc847 65%,#2ea815 65%); /* Chrome10+,Safari5.1+ */
background: -o-linear-gradient(top,  #9bc847 65%,#2ea815 65%); /* Opera 11.10+ */
background: -ms-linear-gradient(top,  #9bc847 65%,#2ea815 65%); /* IE10+ */
background: linear-gradient(to bottom,  #9bc847 65%,#2ea815 65%); /* W3C */
filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient( startColorstr='#9bc847', endColorstr='#2ea815',GradientType=0 ); /* IE6-8 */

As you can notice, the background gradient will be applied to IE6-10, FF 3.6+, Chrome10+, Safari4+ and Opera 11+ with a solid color fallback for other browsers (which are very rare anyways).

If you are using SASS, you can implement this by using @extend quite easily.

.green-gradient{
	background: #9bc847; /* Old browsers */
	/* IE9 SVG, needs conditional override of 'filter' to 'none' */ // => not required due to the override below in .lt-ie9
	background: url(data:image/svg+xml;base64,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);
	background: -moz-linear-gradient(top,  #9bc847 65%, #2ea815 65%); /* FF3.6+ */
	background: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left bottom, color-stop(65%,#9bc847), color-stop(65%,#2ea815)); /* Chrome,Safari4+ */
	background: -webkit-linear-gradient(top,  #9bc847 65%,#2ea815 65%); /* Chrome10+,Safari5.1+ */
	background: -o-linear-gradient(top,  #9bc847 65%,#2ea815 65%); /* Opera 11.10+ */
	background: -ms-linear-gradient(top,  #9bc847 65%,#2ea815 65%); /* IE10+ */
	background: linear-gradient(to bottom,  #9bc847 65%,#2ea815 65%); /* W3C */

   .lt-ie9 &{ // if you've set HTML classes as per HTML5 boilerplate
		filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient( startColorstr='#9bc847', endColorstr='#2ea815',GradientType=0 ); /* IE6-8 */
	}
}

.button{
       @extend .green-gradient; // In the class you wish to use the gradient
}

This will generate the following CSS:

.green-gradient,
.button{
	background: #9bc847;
	background: url(data:image/svg+xml;base64,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);
	background: -moz-linear-gradient(top,  #9bc847 65%, #2ea815 65%);
	background: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left bottom, color-stop(65%,#9bc847), color-stop(65%,#2ea815));
	background: -webkit-linear-gradient(top,  #9bc847 65%,#2ea815 65%);
	background: -o-linear-gradient(top,  #9bc847 65%,#2ea815 65%);
	background: -ms-linear-gradient(top,  #9bc847 65%,#2ea815 65%);
	background: linear-gradient(to bottom,  #9bc847 65%,#2ea815 65%);
}


.lt-ie9 .green-gradient,
.lt-ie9 .button,
	filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient( startColorstr='#9bc847', endColorstr='#2ea815',GradientType=0 );
}

You could use a @mixin also however these add all the different background rules to your current CSS rule, making your CSS larger and giving the browser more CSS rules to process. Tags: web-dev