PSP Tutorial: Web 2.0 Caution bar

Well its very tacky to use White and Red in a Web2.0 style. so we will use just white instead. White is a great shade when it comes to transparency. When its transparency is low enough it can create some neat results.

Elements of the Transparent Caution Bar

1. Corner
2. Scale

Its extremely important to choose one of the 4 corners for the angle settings. Unfortunately results may vary on which corner to choose because it depends on how long and how wide the bar is. These results are still seamless, its just that you don’t want it to repeat at the wrong spot.

Step 1. With your original old picture, Increase the canvas size (Ctrl+Alt+C or Image > Canvas Size) to above 1,000 for Height. Type in the original canvas size of your width or else it will mess up when the pattern repeats.

Step 2: Stretch your 1st and 3rd bar out to the bottom of the image. It must not pass after the bottom of the image. Delete your 2nd and 4th bars.

Step 3: Change your 1st and 3rd bars colors by choosing a Gradient. With the Object Selection Tool (O). Double click or Right click to reach it’s properties, and once your there, click on Gradients. You will want to click Edit, then click New, and create a name for it. Then Highlight your new gradient, place white on both beginning and end. The transparency will be 100% to 0%. Click OK.

Step 4: Now you should have long transparent white bars. But before you go any further, open your Layers Pallete (F8) and uncheck the background from being visible. Now you’ll have the checkered grey and white boxes as your background.

Step 5: Create a new Image, and follow Step 5 on Page 1. Now you may have a problem with the bars ending diagonally across. Its still a cool effect but for the sake of the tutorial, change the angle of the patterm to one of the 4 corners. 2 corners will show the right pattern. One will be more transparent than the other. After your done you will have seamless transparent bars.

Optional: Open your Layers Pallete (F8) in your new image and change the transparency for your caution bars to a low 8-20%. You can also change the Layer Blend Mode to Overlay or Dodge. For this to work, your background color or whatever image your applying this tutorial on, must be a color other than white.

Problems: You may still see your bar ending before its supposed to. You can fix this by increasing the canvas size’s height of your original image, or you can increase the scaling in your rectangle so that the bars don’t repeat.