Blind Illusions Letter Set

Blind Illusions Letter Set

A tutorial of Imperfect Symmetry

Beautiful Butterfly tube is by SDH. With thanks.

My thanks, as always, to my fabulous testers at Force Fantastic who, once again, have proved themselves indispensable.

This tutorial is entirely my own work and any resemblance to any other is purely co-incidental. Please do not copy, duplicate, translate, script or use in any groups without my permission.

You will need:-

PSP. I have used PSP X but this tutorial can be completed in 8 and 9

Simple Filters

A Tube. Can be completed with a graphic but for the purposes of this tutorial we will be using a tube.

Let's Begin!

1. Open your chosen tube in PSP

2. Resize so that it is no more than 175 pixels on it's longest side. Edit/Copy.

3. You will need 3 colours to complete this frame. Select your foreground and background colours by choosing 2 colours from your tube that compliment each other. Either two shades of the same hue (as used for this tutorial) or two contrasting colours. Your third colour for the benefit of this tutorial will be called white although you can use any colour you wish bearing in mind that this will be your letter background. You may find it useful to add all of your chosen colours to your swatches so that you can find them easily as you will be changing them frequently. Throughout the course of this tutorial I will refer to them as Colour 1 (foreground), Colour 2(background) and white.

4. Open a New Raster Transparent Image 180 x 180 Pixels.

5. Flood Fill with Colour 2

6. Effects/Texture Effects/Blinds using the following settings:- Width 2/Opacity 50/Colour 1/Horizontal and Light from Left Top NOT checked. (Light from left top will not be checked throughout this tutorial)

7. Effects/3D Effects/Inner Bevel using the following settings:-

8. Edit/Paste as New Layer

9. Effects/3D Effects/Drop Shadow using the following settings:- Vertical and Horizontal 2/Opacity 50/Blur 10/Colour Black/Shadow on New Layer NOT checked.

10. Layers/Merge/Merge Visible

11. Image/Canvas Size/Increase Canvas Size to 260 x 260 pixels/Image placement centre

12. Layers/New Raster Layer

13. Selection Tool/Custom Selection /using the following settings:- This will produce a 40 x 40 pixel square in the top left corner of your image

14. Flood Fill Tool/Flood fill selection with colour 1

15. Selections/Select All

16. Selections/Modify/Contract 20 Pixels

17. Selections/Invert

18. Flood fill Tool/Flood fill selection with colour 1

19. Deselect

20. Effects/Plugins/Simple Filters/Top Left Mirror

21. Effects/Texture Effects/Blinds/Same settings as previously used but change the colour to Colour 2

22. Effects/3D Effects/Inner Bevel using the same settings:-

23. Effects/3D Effects/Drop Shadow/using the following settings:- Vertical and Horizontal 0/Opacity 55/Blur 10/Colour Black/Shadow on New Layer NOT checked.

24. Layers/New Raster Layer

25. Flood Fill Tool/Flood Fill with White

26. Effects/Texture Effects/Blinds/Colour 1/Horizontal CHECKED/all else the same.

27. Layers/Arrange/Send to Bottom

28. Highlight your middle Image Layer/Effects/3D Effects/Drop Shadow/using the same settings.

29. Layers/Merge/Merge all Flatten.

30. Image/Add Borders/using the following settings/Use a bright colour not contained in your image/Top and Right 40/Left and Bottom 20/Symmetric NOT checked

31. Layers/Promote Background Layer

32. Selection Tool/Magic Wand/using the following settings/Select the border

33. Press Delete on your keyboard

34. Selections/Promote Selection to Layer

35. Flood Fill Tool/Flood fill with colour 2

36. Effects/Plugins/Simple Filters/Top Left Mirror

37. Deselect

38. Image/Flip (it looks odd but don't worry)

39. Effects/Texture/Effects/Blinds/using colour 1/horizontal NOT checked.

40. Effects/3D Effects/Inner Bevel/Same Settings as previously used.

41. Effects/3D Effects/Drop Shadow/same settings as previously used

42. Layers/Arrange/Send to Bottom

43. Layers/New Raster Layer

44. Flood Fill Tool/Flood Fill this layer with White

45. Effects/Texture Effects/Blinds/using colour 1/Horizontal CHECKED

46. Layers/Arrange/Send to Bottom

47. Highlight your top (Image) Layer/Effects/3D effects/Drop Shadow/using the same settings.

48. Layers/Merge/Merge all Flatten

49. Image/Add Borders using the following settings:-

50. Layers/Promote Back ground Layer

51. Selection Tool/Magic Wand/Same Settings/Select the border

52. Press Delete on your keyboard

53. Selections/Promote Selection to Layer

54. Flood Fill Tool/Flood fill with colour 1

55. Effects/Plugins/Simple Filters/Top Left Mirror

56. Deselect

57. Image/Mirror

58. Effects/Texture/Effects/Blinds/using colour 2/horizontal NOT checked.

59. Effects/3D Effects/Inner Bevel/Same Settings as previously used.

60. Effects/3D Effects/Drop Shadow/same settings as previously used

61. Layers/Arrange/Send to Bottom

62. Layers/New Raster Layer

63. Flood Fill Tool/Flood Fill this layer with White

64. Effects/Texture Effects/Blinds/using colour 1/Horizontal CHECKED

65. Layers/Arrange/Send to Bottom

66. Highlight your top (Image) Layer/Effects/3D effects/Drop Shadow/using the same settings.

67. Layers/Merge/Merge Visible.

68. Image/Canvas Size/Increase Canvas Size to 460 x 460 pixels/Image Centre.

69. Layers/New Raster Layer

70. Selection Tool/Custom Selection/Same settings as previously used create the small square in the top of your image.

71. Flood Fill Tool/Flood fill with colour 2

72. Selections/Select All

73. Selections/Modify/Contract 20 Pixels

74. Selections/Invert

75. Flood Fill Tool/Flood Fill with Colour 2

76. Deselect

77. Effects/Plugins/Simple Filters/Top Left Mirror

78. Effects/Texture Effects/Blinds/Same settings as previously used/Colour 1/horizontal NOT checked

79. Effects/3D Effects/Inner Bevel using the same settings as before

80. Effects/3D Effects/Drop Shadow/using the same settings

81. Layers/New Raster Layer

82. Flood Fill Tool/Flood Fill with White

83. Effects/Texture Effects/Blinds/Colour 1/Horizontal CHECKED/all else the same.

84. Layers/Arrange/Send to Bottom

85. Highlight your middle/Image layer/Effects 3D effects/Drop Shadow/Same Settings.

86. Layers/New Layer/Add your watermark if desired.

87. Layers/Merge/Merge all Flatten.

Your Frame is now complete. The frame is 460 x 460 pixels and it does not reduce well without corrupting the image. If you prefer something smaller begin with a smaller image and adjust the measurements given accordingly. Save as a Jpeg with the compression at 25. Leave open in your workspace.

To make the sidebars and background image.

1. With your main frame image open in your workspace make the following selection: select half of the two colour borders down the left side of your frame. Your selection should be between 20 - 24 pixels wide. See image below.

2. Edit/Copy

3. Edit/Paste as New Image. You can now deselect and close your main frame image.

4. Image/Canvas Size. Increase the width of your image by 20 pixels. Leave the height as it is. Image Placement click on the centre left button.

5. Selection Tool/Magic Wand/Same Settings/select the transparent part of your image.

6. Selections/Promote Selection to Layer

7. Flood fill Tool/Flood Fill with white.

8. Effects/Texture Effects/Blinds/Colour 1/Horizontal NOT checked

9. Deselect

10. Image/Canvas Size/increase the canvas width by the width of your original selection (forgotten?? decrease the width of your present image by 20 and increase by that amount. In my case it is 24 pixels.)

11. Highlight your bottom (coloured border) and Layer/Duplicate

12. Image/Mirror

13. Layers/Merge/Merge Visible

14. Image/Canvas Size. Increase the width of your canvas to 1024 pixels or whatever your screen resolution is /Image Centre Left/Leave height as is.

15. Effects/3D Effects/Drop Shadow using the following Settings. Vertical 0/Horizontal 5/Opacity 30/Blur 10/Colour Black/Shadow on New Layer CHECKED.

16. Effects/Image Effects/Seamless Tiling/on your shadow layer using the following settings. Edge/Vertical.

17. Layers/Merge/Merge Visible

18. Layers/Duplicate

19. Image/Mirror

20. Move Tool/Click on your Duplicate Border and move it with the left arrow on your keyboard 17 clicks. Alternatively move it inwards 17 pixels.

21. Layers/New Raster Layer

22. Flood Fill Tool/Flood Fill this layer with White.

23. Effects/Texture Effects/Blinds/Colour 1/horizontal NOT checked.

24. Layers/Arrange/Send to Bottom.

25. Layers/Merge/Merge all Flatten.

Your background and sidebar image is now complete. Save as a Jpeg with the compression at 25.

Assemble in Letter Creator with the background and sidebar image in the body section and tiled. Set your text at between 100 to 110 Left and Right. Place your Frame Image in the Header Section placed centre. Complete your footer details and you are done.

I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial. Click here to let me know.

Use bold colours for stunning effects.

Tube I used is by Pat

or go for the more subtle approach

Tube I used is by Brigitte

You can enhance the edges by inverting the selection and adding a chisel effect to each inner and outer border edge using your darkest colour with the setting at 2 as shown below. I also used a graphic for this sample which I masked using 20 - 20 before adding it to the background image.

Whatever you choose to do with this tutorial I ask only that you enjoy it and I would be delighted to see your result should you wish to share it with me