light line, dark line effect

i am sure everybody knows the effect where a graphic has many small horizontal lines .. dark line, light line .. dark line, light line .. even the flashcomponents.com advert above me has it. could anyone let me know how this is done, i mainly use photoshop for image editing any advice would be greatly welcome :)

thanks in advance baz

you just have to use the define pattern :)

open a new file in photshop. make its background transparent, and say make it side 1 pixel wide and 6 pixels high
now magnify it to the maximum, choose what effect do you want the pattern to have : either make you image darker, or make your image lighter ( lets say you choose you would like to make it lighter) and get the pencil tool. make it "one pixel" sized, and make a new layer above the transparent background layer and name it "white". you then paint white the first three top ( or bottom) pixels (squares) with the pencil.

now, double click on the "white" layer and set it's opacity to 60 %. click on ok. now get the selection tool ( the one to cut and move, the dotted line rectangle, top left on the tool bar)and select your whole 1x6 canvas pixels. the three painted pixels and the three transparent pixels.
then, with that selected, go to edit > define pattern save it with the name you wish and ok.

now open the image you want to have the line effect applied. select the bucket tool and search in the properties box ( below the file/edit/view/etc toolbar) a cascade menu that says "foreground" and change it to "pattern". the open the pattern menu just to the right of that and search for the last pattern ( which is the one you just saved). use the bucket tool on a layer which is on top of your image and you have it.

all the values can be modified. if you want thiner lines just open draw lines of 1 or 2 pixels high instead of 3. if you want it too be more tranlucent, change the alpha value from 60% to 20 % or whatever. if you want your effect to darken the image instead of making it lighter, use balck instead of white, and so on... there are endless possibilitites :)

hope it helps. ;)

thank you i have not tried it yet but that looks like just what i wanted thenk you ... :)

then how would i go about making the pattern into a gradient? is that possible at all? for example i might want the line effect to slowly fade out across the picture??

np :) you just have to be sure you place the pattern on a new layer, in which only element present is the pattern.

once this is done, double click on the layer to open the layer properties & effects window. search for gradient overlay > click on it & check the checkbox > adjust the parameters (colours, alpha, gradient direction)

you have to be sure that nothing else but the pattern should be placed on that layer. if you do so, the object will also get "gradient overlayed".

hope it helps :)