Color gradient to ticks in a plot

Question

Simple question, but I did not find the answer anywhere:

Is it possible to add a color gradient to the ticks in a plot?

For example, imagine to have a density plot where some areas are very dark and some very bright. I would like to display whiter ticks in the darker regions and blacker ticks in the brighter regions.

Thank you!

Answer 1

Sure you can, but you will have to roll your own tick generator:

ClearAll[gradientTicks]
gradientTicks[tickList_] := gradientTicks[tickList, Scaled[0.02], {White, Black}]
gradientTicks[tickList_, length_] := gradientTicks[tickList, length, {White, Black}]
gradientTicks[tickList_, length_, {lightColor_, darkColor_}] :=
 {#, #, length,
   Directive[
     Thick,
     Blend[{lightColor, darkColor}, Rescale[#, MinMax[tickList]]]
   ]
 } & /@ tickList

ContourPlot[
  x^2 + y^2, {x, y} \[Element] Rectangle[{0, 0}, {2, 2}],
  Frame -> False, Axes -> True,
  Ticks -> {
    gradientTicks[Range[0, 2, 0.25], Scaled[0.1], {Yellow, Darker@Blue}], 
    Automatic
  }
]