This tutorial was written and all screenshots done in PSP9. You should be able to achieve similar results in other versions. You may need to search for some of the effects in your PSP's dropdown lists. Please do not offer any of the supplies for download anywhere, do not change file names, do not send the webpage through emails, and only offer a text link to my tutorial URL. I do not wish my tutorials to be translated. Thank you for your courtesy...God bless, Diana
We'll Be Using:
AAA 8bf Filters by Jim Clatfelter (thanks, Jim!)
~~~~~~~~~~
MORE EXAMPLES BY MY TESTERS- CLICK HERE
1) File/Open image (instructions are for drama1.jpg example above; a variation of tut is at page bottom).
2) Right click in Layer Palette and Promote Background Layer.
3) Foreground Color: #3f71a4 (or use your dropper tool and choose a LIGHT or MEDIUM color if using another image.
4) On the Image layer in Layer Palette, click on 100 to lower Opacity to about 50 - we'll change it back to 100 shortly. (You can drag on the double arrows there to move back and forth, or just click your mouse on the Opacity area and then use your keyboards' left and right arrow keys to move back and forth).
5) Click on your bottom, black filled, layer in palette to activate it.
Note: Since the image layer is on blend mode Screen, you can see how the border will look. If border covers too much of your image, click on Edit/Undo, then reapply, changing width to no lower than 25.
6) With the bottom layer activated, add a new Raster Layer and floodfill this layer, also with #000000.
Effects/Plugins/AAA Filters/Tweed Frame and leave Width, Opacity and Lighten as you had them, but change Red, Green and Blue values to your RGB colors and click OK. Change the layer Blend Mode from Normal to Screen on this second Tweed layer which gives a slightly different shade of the color.
7) On your top (image) layer, change the Opacity back to 100, leaving the blend mode as Screen.
8) Now click on either of the lower layers to activate, then right click in Layer Palette and Merge/Merge Visible.
9) With your newly merged bottom layer active, go to Effects/Distortion Effects/Curliques using these values:
10) Still on bottom layer: Effects/Plugins/AAA Filters/Custom: Click on HIGH PASS, change no other values, then OK.
11) Still on bottom layer: Effects/Plugins/AAA Filters/Foto Frame: Change only Brightness to 25, leaving other values at default settings, then click OK.
12) Still on bottom layer: Effects/Plugins/AAA Filters/Custom: First click on RESET button. Then click on Laplace (just to the left of High Pass), change no other values, and click OK.
13) Still on bottom layer: Effects/3D Effects/Drop Shadow: Change Shadow Color to WHITE, Vertical -5(minus), Horiz. 0, Opacity 100, Blur 5, Shadow on New Layer UNchecked.
14) Add a New Raster Layer, then in Layer Palette right click on layer and Arrange/Send to Bottom. At the bottom right of your PSP workspace is your Status Bar which shows your image dimensions on the right hand side of the bar. If you don't have a Status Bar showing, go to View/Toolbars and click on Status (you can toggle it off and on by doing this). Our dimensions for above sample are 400 x 500. We need 25 pixels on each side of the width and height for this next step. Go to Image/Canvas Size and add 50 pixels to width, 50 pixels to height:
15) Floodfill this layer with #000000.
Click on Magic Wand Tool then click in center of image like we did before, hit DELETE key to remove the black rectangle (you can hide the 2 layers above, if you'd like to see what this does).
16) Still on bottom layer: Effects/Plugins/AAA Filters/Foto Frame using same values as in Step 11 then click OK.
17) Add New Raster Layer, then Arrange/Send to Bottom.
Click on Magic Wand Tool then click in center of image like we did before, hit DELETE key to remove the black rectangle (you can hide the layers above, if you'd like to see what this does).
18) Still on bottom layer: Effects/Plugins/AAA Filters/Foto Frame using same values as in Step 11 then click OK.
19) Click on your top (image) layer to make it active, then click on your Text Tool.
20) Use the handle on the vector text to turn it slightly and once positioned, Convert to Raster Layer.
21) Still on your top (text) layer:
New Raster Layer and floodfill with #000000.
22) Add your watermark then File/Export/JPEG Optimizer (I never use the "Wizard" button - just usually Set compression value to 20 for my projects. You're done with the tag/frame but 2 more steps will show you how to save 1 or more of those frame layers to reuse another time.
23) Since we didn't merge all the layers, I saved my frame layers as Picture Frames. Just go to one of the bottom three layers, click to activate it.
24) Go to File/Export/Picture Frame. When the Export Picture Frame window comes up, the File Name area will be highlighted with the name of your current file. Just type in a name (I'd suggest using your initials followed by "name"; I called one of mine wk-drama and the other one wk-drama2, for instance) then click on SAVE. Your new picture frame will be saved in your PSP's Frame folder. When you next want to use it for a quick frame, just open your image, go to Image/Picture Frame and look for it in the dropdown list. You'll notice you can make various changes to the frame's orientation in this window as well. You can now close that copy of the frame layer. (It probably won't be the color you need on another project, but you can use PSP's Adjust/Hue and Saturation/Colorize, for instance, to change the frame to match, add some elements or corners and another border, or whatever you'd like).
~~~ Using drama2.jpg, stopping after Step 13, with 2px #000000 border added: ~~~
MORE EXAMPLES BY MY TESTERS - CLICK HERE
I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial and perhaps learned a little something from it. If you would like to send me an email with your results, I would be delighted to see them. ..God bless, Diana
(There are Several Sets - Using effects from these 3:
Custom Filter, Foto Frame and Tweed Frame)
Create a folder named AAA in your Plugins folder and extract contents of each Plugin's Zip File
NOTE: Jim updates his filters and adds new ones frequently, so check back often!
Windows/Duplicate (Shift+D).
Close the original so you can use it for another project.
Remember to save your work frequently!
Background Color: #000000.
Right click in Layer Palette then New Raster Layer (or click on the New Raster Layer icon on your layer palette).
Floodfill with your #000000 Background Color.
Right click in Layer Palette then Arrange/Move Down (or left mouse/hold on black-filled layer in palette and drag below your image layer).
Click on Normal to change the layer's blend mode to Screen (see below):
Effects/Plugins/AAA Filters/Tweed Frame. Change Width to 50, Opacity to 50, click Lighten, then click OK. You can highlight the numbers and then key in your values - a very user friendly filter - instead of using the sliders.
Go to your Material palette and left mouse click on your Foreground Color to bring up the Material Properties window. Write down the RGB (Red,Green,Blue) Values of your Foregound color (not the HSL colors). You'll see for #3f71a4 that R=63, G=113, B=164.
Click on the eye (Visibility Toggle) to hide the layer (red X).
Click on your Magic Wand Tool: Mode:Add/Shift; Match Mode: RGB Value; Tolerance and Feather: 0. Click on the black rectangle of the just merged layers, then hit your DELETE key. Selections/Select None (Ctrl+D).
You can now click on the Visibility Toggle (red X) to unhide your top (image) layer.
Number of Columns: 4
Number of Rows: 4
Symmetric - Checked
Radius: 50
Strength: 75
Clockwise - UNchecked
Click OK.
Notice on the partial screenshot of this effect where the RESET (if you want to play around with other effects - reset after each one tried) and OK buttons are:
Effects/Plugins/AAA Filters/Tweed Frame with the last values we used (they'll still be there if you haven't shut PSP down. If you have had PSP down, refer to Step 5 screenshot, but use the Red, Green, Blue values from Step 6).
Selections/None (Ctrl+D).
UNhide the layers if you X'd them out.
PSP's Effects/Edge Effects/Enhance.
Change Blend Mode of this Layer to Hard Light.
Floodfill with #000000.
Effects/Plugins/AAA Filters/Tweed Frame. Now change just the Red, Green and Blue values back to 0 as in the screenshot in Step 5.
Selections/None (Ctrl+D).
UNhide the layers if you X'd them out.
PSP's Effects/Edge Effects/Enhance.
Change your Foreground to #FFFFFF and your Background to #3f71a4 that we've been using.
Type your name (if it's long, you made need to change size of text.
Effects/3D Effects/Drop Shadow: Vert.=1; Horizontal=2; Opacity=50; Blur=2; Color=#000000; Shadow on New Layer UNChecked.
Repeat the Drop Shadow.
Selections/Select All.
Selections/Modify/Contract: 2 then hit your Delete key.
Selections/Select None. (Ctrl+D).
Edit/Copy and Edit/Paste as New IMAGE.
Your new image will have a transparent "hole" in it since we deleted those black centers on each layer earlier. You can use this one layer alone, or "mix and match" the frame layers by pasting another onto the New Image as a new layer (if you're using the colored one on top of the black, just go to Adjust/Hue and Saturation/Colorize and use Hue:255, Saturation: 0 and it will be greyed out to match - looks great with those black and white or greyscaled pics). Then Layers/Merge Visible on this new image.
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Created 06/07/06
Westie Kids/Diana Dorsey 2001-2007
(all rights reserved)
Thank You and God bless........Diana