Edge Shaded Backgrounds
Edge shaded backgrounds are made by dithering different colors together so the image will blend from one color to another. The images are wide so they will tile only down the page. They are nice because there is a solid color on the working portion of the page. Having no pattern in the work area allows very good drop shadows for images. Having a nontextured work area is important. However, the left edge can be used for shading or textures. It's often nicer to have a narrower work area. Especially when text is used.
Here are some shaded backgrounds to play with. All of them are 16 color gifs, from the 216 color palette. They all measure 800 wide by 16 high. All are less than 1K byte. They mostly just use 5 or so different colors for the shadeing. It's best to pick a simple sequence of adjacent colors from the standard 215 palette. The work area or the end of the shading could be any color from the palette. Of course all of the overlay image backgrounds must be this color or seams will be seen, Yuck. You must know the background color before you add the drop shadows to your overlay images. Of course don't forget the (border="0") option in your code to hide the border.
Click the image to see what it will look like as a background.
These end in white or #ffffff
These end in the saturated color eg. #ff0000, red
They may be a little to strong for some peoples taste.
This one has both left and right edges shaded.
It's made for a 640 pixel wide display. If you are only using tables for display or can control the absolute placement of the overlay page it works nice. On wider displays if non absoulte overlay placement is used, your stuff will be in the right side shading.
It's a great launching pad for your 3D images.
These have a decorative pattern in the shading.
I like yellows on blue. Most color combinations that use a side and the opposite edge, of the color cube, work well together in contrast.
The above edge shaded backgrounds are free for the taking. If you don't see anything you like.
