A (Hopefully) Simple Photoshop Question

[Winterwind]

We publish, or rather try to, a quarterly ezine. Unfortunately we're ridiculously late with our summer issue because... well, our artist is no longer our artist.

Anyhow... I'm no graphic designer. I can add text to an image for a title page (but then who can't?) and handle some very basic things but... I need to know how to do the following and any help would be very, very appreciated.

I know how to change the opacity of a colour overlay so I can have text on top of an image. And I can play with gradients to blend an image into a background colour but I don't know how to do this:

http://www.winterwind-productions.com/issue16/life.htm

http://www.winterwind-productions.com/issue17/supernatural.htm

How do I make smaller areas opaque so that some of the picture behind, still shows through? I can easily do an overlay over the entire image but I'd prefer individual columns/sections. No doubt quite simple but I've no clue how.

Also... if anyone has the time and would like to contribute, we're always looking for artists, columnists, etc.

Cheers!

 

[tafkats]

First of all, Photoshop is not a great tool for document design. It's meant for graphics, but if you're trying to design an entire magazine, you'll be better off investing in InDesign or QuarkXPress.

That said, here's how I would do it:

1. Make a new layer.

2. Draw a white rectangle anyplace you want the image to fade out.

3. In the layers palette, with the layer your rectangles are in selected, find the opacity control (I can't remember if it's a slider or a number entry box or both), and dial it down until you get the right amount of image showing through.

 

[Winterwind]

Bah! I should have thought of something like that already.

And we're not doing document design, just background images. But that tip of yours should be exactly what I need so thanks.

ETA: Exactly what I needed. Thanks.