How to do this effect?

**Ben** · Feb 1, 2004 15:28

Hello,

I saw this in a tutorial here a while back but I can't find it now. The effect is in the header on this site: http://www.simplebits.com/. Its all the boxes in the background. I know I saw a tutorial here for it, but I can't seem to find it. Thanks.

-Ben

**Clampants** · Feb 2, 2004 08:21

That looks like you could mimic that effect a number of ways...let's see if I can give some tips off the top of my head:

1.) Create an orange/yellow box on a layer...this will be the header background
2.) On a new layer, create a constrained (holding shift) square, with a darker orange fill.
2a.) Duplicate the square layer over and over, and arrange (align) in a grid with equal spacing (1px?) between them...adjust the transparency of each layer as you see fit (to get that effect of different shaded squares). I'd just create this grid of boxes to cover half or 2/3 of the orange header.
3.) To create the gradient over these boxes, create a new layer on top of everything...load the selection of the first layer (hold CNTRL and select the header layer in the layers pallette). In this new selection, make sure the foreground color is the orange of the background, then use the gradient tool (set to Foreground - to - transparency) to creat that fade to the grid effect.

Should work, but there's a bunch of ways to get that done. It is a simple and cool header.