In this tutorial you will learn how to make the following:

This technique can be used to create quite some cool stuff and it can be applied not only to content tables but also to headers and banners.

Please note that each step requires it's own layer.

Open a new document (300x80 pixels) and fill it with a plain black color (#000000).

Now I am going to zoom in a bit and create the shape that will be our colored stripe. For now lets concentrate on the shape itself rather than it's color. The highlighted point on the left is my starting point and that is how I created it, you can try to imitate or do it your own way that you are more comfortable with as long as you get the wanted result.

Next we want to create a gradient starting from the top toward the middle but not all the way. Once you have it how you like it, adjust the opacity down to 17% and with the gradient layer selected, press the down arrow key twice and the right arrow key once. Basically what we just did is we created a gradient, lowered it's opacity and moved it 2 pixels down and 1 pixel to the right.

Note: Image is once again zoomed in. 

Now we are going to spice up our shape a little bit:

• First we are going to Ctrl+Click the shape layer to create a selection around it. Now go to Select -> Modify -> Contract and set it to 1 pixel. You now should have a selection smaller than our original shape (don't forget to create a new layer for it), fill it with white and set it to overlay.
• Create a new layer,  Ctrl+Click the original shape layer and repeat the steps above only this time contracting it by 2 pixels. Set the layer to overlay.
• On a new layer repeat the procedure only this time contracting our selection by 4 pixels and once again setting the layer to overlay.

At this point you should have the following:

Up next we will add a small detail. For this we will need a 1px pencil and (on a new layer) while holding down the Shift key, we are going to draw a straight line over the shape we created. Now set the layer to Overlay and with a large soft eraser erase a bit of the line to create something like the image below.

We are now going to add some more shading to the sides above and under our colored line. To make that easy we are going to create a new layer, fill it with white color and while staying on the same layer Ctrl+Click our shape layer and press delete.

Now you can make the layer invisible by clicking on the eye icon on the layer. Wonder why we made this? This shape will be the base for our selections and gradients, and it will serve as a border preventing anything from getting onto our colored stripe. Simply put, by Ctrl+Clicking this layer you will create a selection that will let us made adjustments to everything on our table but the colored stripe. I went ahead and added a few lines with pencil and a gradient above and below the stripe. I also lowered the opacity down to my liking. Another nice touch up would be creating a new layer, taking a brush of approximately 60p and placing a dot over our colored line, set the layer to overlay and lower the opacity to your liking. 

In the end you should have something like the following.