"Fred Finisterre" wrote in message
I have a rectangular image. I want to fade it out gradually from the centre as you move to the left – ideally to transparent.
Can anyone tell me how to do this with CS3?
Thanks,
Fred.
Sounds like you need a gradient layer mask.
To do this on o e layer only, the background, it needs to be unlocked. Simple, just alt+ click on the word "background" in the layers pallette, it will then change to layer 0.
At the bottom of the layers pallette are some icons, the third one from the left, a rectangle with a circle in it, is the layer mask icon. Click on this to add a layer mask to the layer.
You will see a white thumbnaill added along side your original image thumbnail in the layers pallette.
Click on this to "activate" it, it is this mask you will be working on. Hit D on the keyboard to set your back/foreground colours to black and white.
The gradient tool (G on the keyboard) is on a flyout under the paintbucket tool.
It should be set to foreground to background by default in the gradient picker, the second icon from left on the options bar, a long one showing black fading to white. If not the down pointing arrow at left opens the gradient picker.
Then, with your mask icon still active, just click and drag from an edge on you image to obtain the effect you want.
This method does not affect the original pixels in any way, totally non destructive, if you want to get back to your original just delete the mask or just fill it with white.
TWK
