Brief Tutorial: When your stripes and such just won't quite line up

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psugorilla

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Jul 19, 2016
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Hey Guys,
I have not seen this example covered on other sites and is something I have been doing for years so i thought I would make this very simple tutorial to share.
How many times have you fought with stripes or other layers not quite matching up when moving from a side panel to the rear or even on some older mods (especially like Cup 90)
moving from the sides to the nose? Where you have your lines, they don't quite match, and you move 1 piece a single click up and it's too far, you move the other down and it's too far.
What do you do? Here is an example:layer lineup1.jpg

The Red would have been easier to show but I had already fixed it prior to setting up this tutorial. As you can see, the blue of the passenger side is just a tiny bit off from the rear. The drivers side was perfectly aligned so I had to make adjustments here. Moving 1 whole push would throw it too high. SO, the fix is simple You trick the software into thinking it is making a 1/2 pixel outline by using the settings below.

layer lineup2.jpg

With your side layer selected, Open up the Layer Style menu. Select Stroke; Change the color of the stroke to the same color as your layer (this trick can be difficult with gradients so I suggest always setting up with a solid color first, then applying a gradient overlay afterwards). Then set the stroke width to 1 and the position to center. Make sure the blend mode is set to normal and opacity at 100; then click OK.
Flatten your layers, save the flat to be viewed in Carviewer and check your alignment. ***TIP: I always recommend going to edit\undo immediately after the file saves and before you move to carviewer. That way your file is back to being layered and you don't make the mistake of accidentally making changes on a car flat or accidentally closing the file before you save the layered PSD.

layer lineup3.jpg

And Voila! The side stripes are now aligned with the rear.
 

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