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Everyone knows, or can guess how to create, simple diagonal line patterns in Photoshop. That is... the 1px line patterns. If you need them to be thicker, it gets a lot harder. Take a look at the right for an example of a 1px and a 5px diagonal line pattern.

To create a 5px line, start with a canvas of 20px*20px. And draw a 1px line with your Pencil Tool from one corner of your canvas to the other corner. (see ex.1 on the left). Once you've done that, start adding lines next to it to make it thicker (see ex.2 on the left)

NOTE: You have to take an uneven number of lines to make this work, for example: 3px, 7px, 15px, etc.

For a line of 5px thick, you would have to add two rows of pixels on both sides of the 1px line you already created. (1+2+2=5). If you create your pattern now, you will notice you have some gaps in your line. Although this might give you some interesting effects, this probably wasn't what you were aiming for. So we go on. Add two rows of pixels in both of the other corners (see ex.1 and ex.2 on the right).

If you create your pattern now, you'll notice that the gaps have vanished and you have a nice smooth line of 5px thick.

This technique is extremely useful for creating industrial patterns like the one on the left. I used an 11px thick line here and erased some parts of it to get the worn look.

Try it for yourself and see what you can come up with!

gr8 very nice tutorial!

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pretty sure out of all the things i've tried in photoshop i've been trying to figure that out for a while. lol made me feel pretty silly finding out it was that simple
thanks for the tutorial

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