› › HOW TO> PHOTOSHOP USER>^ APRIL 2020[ 26 ]
Step Five: With the gradient layer
active, hold down the Shift key, and
click on the duplicate of the Back-
ground layer (Layer 1) to select them
both. Right-click on either of the
selected layers, and choose Convert
to Smart Object. This will combine
the two layers together without
actually merging them. Once the
smart object is created, double-click
its layer thumbnail in the Layers panel
to open it as a separate document.
You should see both the gradient
layer and the black layer.Step Six: Go back to the Tool-
bar and select the Line tool (nested
below the Rectangle tool [U] in the
Toolbar). In the Options Bar, set the
Tool Mode to Shape, the Fill color to
No Color, the Stroke color to black,
and the stroke width to 10 px.Step Seven: Press Command-R
(PC: Ctrl-R) to turn on the rulers in
your document. Right-click inside
one of the rulers, and select Pixels.
Drag out a corner point of your doc-
ument window so you can see the
surrounding canvas area. Starting
about 180 pixels from the left side
of the document, hold the Shift key,
click just above the document in the
canvas area, and drag straight down
to just below the document to draw
a vertical line. You want the line to
extend beyond the document edges
just a little to make sure it goes the
full height of the image. You’ll see
that a Shape layer was automatically
created in the Layers panel. (Note:
The color of your path may be dif-
ferent than what’s shown here,
depending on what you have your
Path Options set to. Click on the gear
icon in the Options Bar to open the
Path Options.)