Imperfection Frame

Imperfection Frame and Background

With grateful thanks to my fabulous group of testers at Forcefantastic for their suggestions and amendments and hard work in getting these tutorials as perfect as they can be. You rock girls!

This is what we are making: More examples and alternatives at foot of page.

The beautiful Pegasus Tube I have used is by CJ and the Ribbon Tube is by Vivarant. With Thanks

You will need:

PSP. I have used PSP X but the tut should be workable in PSP 9, X1 and X11

A tube or a graphic. A misted tube works well or you can mask a graphic with 20-20 mask

Filter Factory Gallery B

Penta Dot

Artistic

Filters Unlimited 2

Ribbon Tube Here

20-20 Mask Here

Snakeskin Displacement Map Here

Let's begin!

1. Open your chosen tube or graphic in PSP. and resize to 350 pixels on it's largest side.

2. If you are using a non-misted tube or a graphic mask with 20-20 at this point.

3. Choose two complimentary colours from your image. A darker one for your foreground and a lighter one for your background.

4. Materials Palette/Foreground/Create the following gradient. Foreground/Background/Style Linear/Angle 45/ Repeats 0/Invert CHECKED

5. Materials Palette/Background/Create the following gradient. (If you have completed my Magic Mirror Tutorial you may already have this gradient saved as Magic Mirror)

Gradient Tab/Foreground-Background using the following settings: Click on Edit in your Materials Properties Gradient Screen and it will take you to the Gradients Editor Screen/Note the position of the nodes.

Now move the left node until the Location Box says 50%

Now move the right node until the Location Box says 51% then click on Save As and name it Imperfection Gradient. Select Style Linear/ Angle 45/Repeats 0/Invert CHECKED. OK and it should now be showing in your Materials Palette.

6. Open a new transparent/raster image 450 x 450 pixels

7. Preset Shape Tool using the following settings:- Ellipse/Anti-alias and Create as Vector CHECKED/Retain style UNCHECKED/Line Style +Solid/Width 8

8. In your Materials Palette Null the Background box containing your Imperfection Gradient and holding down the Shift Key beginning in the top left corner of your image drag out a circle 348 x 348 pixels. You can check the measurement on the bottom of your PSP Screen. Mine are on the left.

9. Objects/Align/Centre in Canvas

10. Layers/Convert to Raster Layer

11. Close this layer and highlight your bottom blank layer.

12. Re-open your Imperfection Gradient and right click to flood fill the layer.

13. Effects/Plugins/Filter Factory Gallery B/James Bondage using the following settings: Distortion Radius 140/Twirl 255/Transparency Radius 140.

14. Selection Tool/Magic Wand using the following settings:-Mode Add (Shift)/Match Mode RGB Value/Tolerance 10/Use all layers and Contiguous CHECKED/Feather 0/Anti-alias CHECKED/Outside selected.

15. Select the darker (left) spiral then press DELETE on your keyboard.

16. Selections/Promote Selection to Layer.

17. Flood fill with your Foreground gradient.

18. Selections/Select None.

19. Close your bottom layer and with your centre layer still highlighted/Magic Wand/Same settings but change the FEATHER to 3 click anywhere on the transparent area.

20. Press Delete 4 - 5 times.

21. Selections/Select None. (Change the feather setting back to 0 now)

22. Adjust/Add/Remove Noise/Add Noise using the following settings:Gaussian/6%/Monochrome UNCHECKED

23. Effects/Plugins/Artistic/Dry Brush using the following settings:-Brush Size 2/Brush Detail 8/Texture 1.

24. Effects/3D Effects/Inner Bevel using the following settings:-Bevel 2/Width 20/Smoothness 40/Depth 1/Ambience and Shininess 0/Colour White/Angle 315/Intensity and Elevation 40

25. Effects/3D Effects/Drop Shadow using the following settings:-Vertical 0/Horizontal 3/Opacity 35/Blur 10/Colour Black/Shadow on New Layer UNCHECKED.

26. Close this layer and Highlight and Open your bottom Layer.

27. Magic Wand (Same settings) Select the coloured spiral.

28. Selections/Modify/Expand 4

29. Materials Palette/Background/Change the Imperfection Gradient to Foreground Background (Same settings) Invert UNCHECKED. It should now be a reflection of the gradient in your Foreground box.

30. Flood Fill Tool/Right Click to flood fill your selected spiral.

31. Selections/Select None

32. Effects/Plugins/Penta.com/Colour Dot using the following settings:-Value 90/Distance 5/Colour R,G,B 255.

33. Effects/3D Effects/Inner Bevel (Same Settings)

34. Re-open your middle layer and Layers/Merge/Merge visible.

35. Open your top (circle) layer and adjust position as necessary so that it just covers the edges. You can use the pick tool to tweak if necessary.

36. Effects/3D Effects/Inner Bevel (same settings but adjust the smoothness to 20)

You should now have this:

37. Selection Tool/Magic Wand/Select the centre transparent area of your circle. Check that it covers the whole of the transparency. You may have to double click at the top

38. Selections/Promote Selection to Layer

39. Selections/Modify/Expand 2

40. Effects/3D Effects/Cutout using the following settings: Vertical and Horizontal 0/Opacity 70/Blur 20/Shadow Colour Black/Fill interior with colour UNCHECKED.

41. Selections/Select None/Layers/Arrange/Move Down.

42. Layers/Merge/Merge Visible.

43. Layers/New Raster Layer

44. Layers/Arrange/Send to Bottom

45. Flood Fill Tool/Right Click to Flood fill with your background gradient.

46. Adjust/Add/Remove noise/Add Noise/Same settings as before but increase the Noise to 9%

If you are using a masked graphic that will cover the whole of your frame centre you may want to leave out steps 47 & 48.

47. Effects/Plugins/Artistic/Dry Brush same settings.

48. Effects/Distortion Effects/Displacement Maps using the following settings: Displacement Map Snakeskin/Stretch Map to fit image CHECKED/Blur 0/2D Offsets CHECKED/Intensity 100/Rotation 0/Repeat CHECKED

49. Activate your tube or graphic and Edit/Copy and close

50. Edit/Paste as New Layer onto your image.

You can at this point if you wish highlight your frame layer and add Zero SoftMood. Set the Haziness to 0 and adjust the glow to taste. It works well with some colours but not with others. For this one I have set the Glow to 75. Try to avoid glare.

51. If everything is as you want it/Image/Add Borders 8 Pixels Symmetric in white or any colour not in your image.

52. Selection Tool/Magic Wand/Select the Border

53. Flood Fill Tool/Right Click to Flood Fill with your Background gradient.

54. Effects/3D Effects/Inner Bevel (Last Used Smoothness 20)

55. If you used SoftMood on your Frame use it again now while the border is still selected.

56. Selections/Select None.

Your frame is complete and now all you need to do is decorate as you wish. I have added the ribbon shown if you wish to use it and all you need to do is position it, colourise to taste and add a drop shadow (0,3,35,10). I love the simplicity of it.

Merge your layers and export as a Jpeg with the compression at 25. Keep open in your workspace for the moment and we will make the sidebars and background.

1. Selection/Custom Selection using the following Settings:

2. Edit/Copy

3. Edit/Paste as New Image (you can now close off your main image)

4. Effects/Plugins/Filters Unlimited 2/Tile and Mirror/Seamless Blend (Vertical)

5. Effects/Plugins/Filters Unlimited 2/Tile and Mirror/Mirrored and Scaled.

6. Image/Canvas Size/Increase the width of the Canvas to 1280 pixels/Height 217/Placement Centre Left Arrow/then change the Left setting to 50 (see below) (It's difficult to know exactly what width to make your background with so many different sized screens being used so make it the same width as you make your other letters)

1. The size of your original image

2. Change the width to your required size/Height 217

3. Using the top arrow on the Left Control Box change the Left Setting to 50 (Right will self adjust)

7. Effects/3D Effects/Drop Shadow using the following Settings:- Vertical & Horizontal 0/Opacity 55/Blur 7/Colour Black/Shadow on New Layer CHECKED

8. Effects/Image Effects/Seamless Tiling (on your shadow layer) using the following settings: Corner/Vertical

9. Layers/Merge/Merge Visible.

10. Layers/Duplicate

11. Image/Mirror

12. Layers/Merge/Merge Down

13. Layers/New Raster Layer

14. Layers/Arrange/Move Down

15. Flood Fill Tool/Flood fill the layer with your foreground or background colour. Whichever you prefer. Or use another colour completely. I have used my foreground colour.

If you have used your foreground or background colour for the background layer try adding SoftMood to it to bring the colour in line with your image. You can also add it to the sidebars to really give them some Zing! Play around until you find what you like.

16. Adjust/Add/Remove Noise/Add Noise/Same settings as last used (Noise 9%)

17. Effects/Plugins/Artistic/Dry Brush

18. Effects/Distortion Effects/Displacement Maps using the same settings as before.

19. Effects/Image Effects/Seamless Tiling/Mirror/Bi-directional.

And that's it. Export as a Jpeg with the compression at 25.

Assemble in Letter Creator setting your text at around 120 Left and Right.

Now you have done it. Get more creative!! Animate it. Use Different colours. Change the Textures and decoration. Make it your own!

This gorgeous misted tube is by Kathy_Kms2 This cute snowman is tubed by Mull

In this example I used a texture for the left and Penta Jeans for the right and added gold borders and some text.

Tube is Puregold by Shel

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