Preserved Topic: Grids

Okay, this may not be groundbreaking, but I want to create a background that looks, basically, like graph paper. Grey lines, white blocks, maybe add a texture afterward. I found a tutorial on grids, but I cant seem to control the colors very well, always seem to get very contrasting colors. Any thoughts/ideas on how/where to get this info? Of course, if one of you wanted to just give up the the steps, it wouldnt take very long....

specialization is for insects

Hmmph, I posted something dumb, realized, I didn't read your message very well... Hold on, Lemme think of something else..

- Dan -

[This message has been edited by Dan (edited 12-07-2000).]

Ok, if your lines are all black, I'd use the magic wand tool, and select the whole grid, then change it to a medium/dark grey. Now, use Image > Adjust > Selective Color. Turn black into something else(just a little tiny bit), and do any other changed to colors you want(still, really little and tiny and stuff). Then, make a layer over top, and paint it with however you want the grid to be colored (remember, small lines, so nothing fancy will look good). Set that layer to hard light. That should be it.

- Dan -

Okay nerd, I hope this will help some, it's going to be a bit lengthy, but I'm never sure at what level PS users are starting off.

So, a grid:

The best way to start off is to define your grid pattern.
1)Create a new document the width and height that you want each square, or rectangle of your grid to be. If you want gridlines that are lighter than your image background, select a black background, with your foreground colour as white, if you want darker gridlines, select the opposite (white bg, black fg)

2)make a mask selection (use the rectangular marquee tool) of the entire document, except the last row of pixels on the right, and the last row of pixels on the bottom (or few rows of pixels on the right and bottom, it all depends on how thick you want your gridlines to be). Now, go to SELECT>>>INVERSE. A mask will appear around the bottom and right rows of pixels. Now EDIT>>>FILL. Fill the selection with the forground colour. What you see will be your grid pattern.

3)Now, go to SELECT>>>ALL...then EDIT>>>DEFINE PATTERN. You're now ready to make your grid.

4)Open a new document the size that you want your entire grid to be. Create a new layer (name it grid...of course <img border=0 align=absmiddle src="http://www.ozones.com/forum/smile.gif"> ). Click on your FILL tool, then click the TOOL OPTIONS palette. Where it says fill with, select PATTERN instead of FOREGROUND. Fill the entire Grid layer with the pattern.

5)Now that you have your grid, it's merely a case of playing with your blending.

Okay, if you selected white gridlines and a black background for your pattern, look at your LAYERS palette, and see the box at the top left that says "NORMAL" click on that, and select COLOR DODGE. What this means is that where the grid is lighter than the background, it will show lighter. To play with the amount it lightens, slide the opacity slider up and down. (If your document background is white however, you won't see any grid using color dodge)

OR

If you selected black gridlines and a white background for your pattern, look at your LAYERS palette, and see the box at the top left that says "NORMAL" click on that, and select COLOR BURN. What this means is that where the grid is darker than the background, it will show darker. To play with the amount it darkens, again slide the opacity slider up and down. (If your document background is black however, you won't see any grid using color burn)

6) After all that is done, you can change your background to whatever colour, or texture that you wish, and the gridlines will show through darkening or lightening the areas over the background that they fall. If you want to add a texture under the grid, just fill the background with the texture, or when you make a new texture layer, make sure it is "underneath" your grid layer.

Hope that was simple enough (and yet not too stupid). If there's any problems, or something needs to be explained better, or I'm just plain out to lunch <img border=0 align=absmiddle src="http://www.ozones.com/forum/biggrin.gif"> , drop me a line.

Peter@DarkGarden

Thank you both very much. Darkgarden, Ill give it a shot when I get home tonight, Im not allowed to use PS at work anymore :-(
Your instructions make sense though. The other tech. did work, but I love learning new tech's....