An overlay is a type of mask that you create in PhotoShop and import into DVDSP like any other menu. However, this only acts as a guide to create highlights. The actual image is never displayed. instead, you define your Overlay Image and then use the Highlight Set to define the colors for the Selected and Activated highlights.

All overlay images use highlights defined from just four colors: 100 black, 66 percent black, 33 percent black and 0 percent black. Basically, your Photoshop document needs to be a grayscale file that represents the shapes of your buttons. In the Photoshop doc, you need to use the following RGB definitions for the four states of black:

In DVDSP, each of the overlay’s four shades of gray are translated into a distinct color from the highlight set.

Remember that any part of the overlay that is outside of the hotspot will not show up in the selected or activated area.

Simple Overlays
Simple overlays use a single color for each button’s selected and activated states. In simple overlay mode, highlight opacity is defined by the overlay image’s four grayscale values.

To create a simple overlay menu

1. First, create your grayscale overlay in Photoshop, making sure to define your shapes the appropriate grayscale equivalent. If you're trying to match a scene from a movie, you can export a still frame from Final Cut Pro and then import it into PhotoShop and work with this as your background. Remeber: Overlays must contain a single layer!

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