Neverside

thick lines

hey, does anybody know of a tutorial that will help me create a thick diaganol line like the one seen at the top of this site (the ones that fade out) http://deeplyshallow.com/
i've seen one, but when i try to do it, the pattern isn't inline. so i'm kind of hoping someone can explain it better.

Hey, Sharpdust. It's a pretty simple process in Photoshop. The way I did it was this:

- Create a new layer
- Using the rectangular marquee tool, draw a narrow vertical rectangle (size it to the width you want, but make sure there's plenty of height, as it'll come in handy later)
- Fill the rectangle with your desired color (I used black)
- Ctrl + D to deselect

Now it's just a matter of duplicating the line, so:
- Ctrl + A to select all
- Alt + any arrow key to create a duplicate
- Move the duplicate to wherever you like -- I usually Shift + Arrow to move it in increments of 10px, helps me keep the spacing straight in my head
- Repeat as necessary until you have as many vertical lines as you want
- Now use Free Transform (Ctrl + T) to select the entire layer
- Rotate 45 degrees, then hit enter to confirm

That's really all I did to create it. Once you rotate the layer, you may need to do a little more duplication to fill in any gaps. As for the effects, I set the Blend Mode to Soft Light at 50% opacity, and that was it. To create the fade-out effect, I chose the 300px soft-edge eraser tool and shift+dragged to gently erase the hard bottom of the layer.

Hope that helps. I don't write tutorials often, so if it doesn't make sense, feel free to email me if you have questions. Email address is on my site.

http://biorust.com/tutorials/detail/169/en/
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