How do I do a gradient fill on 7 connected circles?

[Madmaxneo]

I have 7 connected circles of which I made the centers transparent. I merged them together into a single raster and I am attempting to fill the circles (not the transparent centers) with a gradient fill. It will not let me fill the circles with a gradient fill at all but it will let me change the background color.
How do I get it to fill the black area with a gradient fill?
My current image attached below, the black area I want filled with a gradient rainbow of colors. If possible I prefer a gradient that radiates from the center and the colors change further you get from the center (a circular gradient fill).

[LeviFiction]

With a raster like this it's pretty easy. There are several methods you can use, you mention the Gradient Fill tool so I'll work with that.

1) Make sure you don't have any selections (Ctrl + D for Select None)
2) Lock the transparency of the layer (in the layers palette, select the layer, then click on the gold Lock button on the palette)
3) Use the Gradient Fill tool by dragging the direction of the gradient, it should only fill the opaque areas.

Another method using the standard fill tool
1) Grab the Fill tool
2) Set match mode to "All Opaque"
3) Click directly on the black line to fill it with the gradient.

One more method - don't convert to raster. I am making the assumption you created these circles with vectors but if you did it's better to keep them vectors. You do this by merging vector circles into one vector item using the script "VectorMergeSelected". Then set the stroke color (foreground color) to the gradient. You can constantly change these. And scale them losslessly.

[Madmaxneo]

With a raster like this it's pretty easy. There are several methods you can use, you mention the Gradient Fill tool so I'll work with that.

1) Make sure you don't have any selections (Ctrl + D for Select None)
2) Lock the transparency of the layer (in the layers palette, select the layer, then click on the gold Lock button on the palette)
3) Use the Gradient Fill tool by dragging the direction of the gradient, it should only fill the opaque areas.

Another method using the standard fill tool
1) Grab the Fill tool
2) Set match mode to "All Opaque"
3) Click directly on the black line to fill it with the gradient.

One more method - don't convert to raster. I am making the assumption you created these circles with vectors but if you did it's better to keep them vectors. You do this by merging vector circles into one vector item using the script "VectorMergeSelected". Then set the stroke color (foreground color) to the gradient. You can constantly change these. And scale them losslessly.

Thanks, the first method worked pretty good.
I originally created the circles using the ellipse tool with one inside the other and then using the magic wand to "cut" out the white space thereby making a circle with a transparent center, then I just copied and pasted. When I merged the circles to properly center each set it automatically converted them to raster.

I've never used scripts and am not even sure where to input them.

EDIT: Is there a way to a circular (radial?) gradient fill from the center out to all the edges?

[LeviFiction]

Choose Sunburst mode from the tool options palette when using the Gradient Fill tool.

gradientToolOptions.png (8.47 KiB) Viewed 390 times

[Madmaxneo]

Choose Sunburst mode from the tool options palette when using the Gradient Fill tool.
gradientToolOptions.png

Thanks!