How to make a solid black bar fade out?

[rickk]

(07-10-2021, 10:48 AM)R3XXY Wrote: Most of that went over my head, I'm something of a noob, but thanks for the detailed reply. I will look into the things you suggested.

I'm somewhat of a n00b, too.  One thing you might try is to create a second layer the size of your eventual black bar, and give it an alpha channel (layer>transparency>add_alpha_channel, in the menuing system)

Then with your bucket-fill tool in "erase" mode, make that smaller layer invisible.

With black set as your foreground color, select the gradient tool, and down in the "gradient tool options" click on the little gradient icon, and a menu should pop open. Select  "FG to Transparent" from that menu.

Then click and drag your cursor over the smaller invisible layer, from bottom to top (one click below, then one click above the smaller layer). The end points that are plotted are moveable. you can click the top dot, and move it farther away to "stretch out" the shading of the gradient. Same is true for the bottom dot.

You can also click on the line between the  two dots, to create additional control points that can be moved up or down to give you finer control over how the gradient is spread.

Once you get the gradient to your satisfaction, then put your text on the same smaller layer.

Then, once everything is to your liking, merge the smaller layer (having both the gradient and text on it) down onto the background layer that has your desired image on it.

The reason I prefer this method is because it allows you to stretch the gradient control tool beyond the boundaries of the smaller layer without affecting the main image.

Just make sure that you make the smaller layer completely transparent to start with, and use the "FG to transparent" mode in your gradient

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Here is an example with somewhat unusual coloring, for emphasis