Is there a way how to stop the background image from repeating it self vertically? I want to use a trick where the background image is 1280px wide but ends level with the google ads. I can stop the repeat altogether but when the background image is only 10px wide I need it to repeat, so it fills the width of the screen. The rest would be just background color. In other words I want the repeat to stop after one row. Is it possible?

I think I understand your question. You want to make the background repeat only once. so try this...

in your css file declare the background with an attribute of "no-repeat"

Now if you want that background to repeat to fill a certain random volume of horizontal space then stop the only solution I can think of is boxing in the background via a div.

Hope that helps. Maybe someone else can explain this better then I can.

You can use

background-repeat:repeat-x

so that the image will only repeat horizontally, but not vertically. Naturally there's a corresponding repeat-y value for the background-repeat property.

This should help: http://www.w3schools.com/css/pr_background-repeat.asp

If for some reason your background image isn't quite right you can write your background code like this:

background: url(images/background.jpg) 0 10px repeat-x #fff;

The "0 10px" are horizontal and vertical positional values that will offset your background within an element. You can replace them with other pixel values, percentages, em values, whatever suits your design needs (I seem to use 50% 50% quite a bit).

After the positional values you have your repeat information telling the graphic only to repeat along the x axis. Then following that there is a color value. This color will fill up all the space that your background doesn't within the affected element. You can leave is blank if you want it to be transparent around your background image.

Hope that helps!