Gradients and masks driving me insane

I’m not exactly proficient in the use of Fireworks CS4, but this is something I thought would be simple enough for me to do. But I can’t find a way to do it!

I want to fade a photo from the centre towards the left and right. So the fading sweeps horizontally from the middle to the vertical edges of the image. I can do this in one direction by using Commands > Creative > Auto Vector > Mask or using a mask with the gradient tool. The effect is the same. But if I then try and add a second gradient in the opposite direction, the first one is “cancelled”.

I thought about adding a second mask, but Fireworks won’t let me. How can I do this?

Thanks for replying, Ralph. Bars isn’t good enough, it is too restrictive as it creates a thin bar in the middle and then fades left and right, but too much ends up being faded.

The answer ended up being stupidly simple. It’s simply to draw a rectangular marquee over each side individually, applying the linear gradient to each end. So simple, but I just didn’t think of it!

Something I do wonder though is why is more than one mask per bitmap not allowed?

I don’t know Fireworks at all, but just from a quick look, if you click on the Gradient tool > Fill options, and choose Bars as the gradient type (from the drop list–Linear is the default) that might get you what you want?