Split Personality Top Border
This is what we will be making.
This tutorial is entirely my own work and any resemblance to any other is purely coincidental. Please do not take this tutorial and alter it and claim it as your own. If sharing please only share the link and not the page.
My thanks, as always to the fabulous team at Force Fantastic for their work in testing this tutorial.
You will need:-
PSP 9 or X
A Tube (a long. thin tube will not work well with this tutorial so choose one that is as square as possible)
Simple Filters
RCS Filter Pack 1.0 (Atomic Split)
IC Net. Software Filters Unlimited 2.0
This tutorial is designed for a screen resolution of 1024 x 768 if yours is different you will have to adjust the measurements accordingly.
This is what you do.
1. Open your chosen tube in PSP. Duplicate twice and close the original. Minimize one copy and leave the other open in your workspace. We are going to create the background for our tube.
2. Materials Palette/Foreground Colour/Select a Light colour from your tube.
3. Select White as your Background colour
4. Layers/New Raster Layer
5. Layers/Arrange/Send to Bottom
6. Flood Fill Tool/ Flood fill this layer with your foreground colour
7. Layers/Merge/Merge all flatten
8. Effects/Image Effects/Seamless Tiling at default.
9. Adjust/Blur/Gaussian Blur/Radius 30
10. Effects/Plugins/IC Net. Software Filters Unlimited 2/Tile and Mirror/Radial Tile at default
11. Window/Duplicate/Minimize this copy until later.
12. Image/Resize. We need to make our image square. To do this look at the original dimensions of your image and making sure that Lock Aspect Ratio is unchecked make the shortest sides of your image the same measurements as the longest sides. (See image below)
13. Maximise the other copy of your tube and Edit/Copy and close this image.
14. Edit/Paste as New Layer onto your square image.
15. Effects/3D Effects/Drop Shadow using the following settings.
16. Layers/Merge/Merge all flatten.
17. Image/Resize/Resize your image to 96 x 96 pixels making sure that Lock Aspect Ratio is checked. All other settings remain the same as previously used.
18. Layers/Promote Background Layer
19. Layers/Duplicate
20. Close the bottom (Raster 1) Layer by clicking on the eye in your layer palette.
21. Working on your top layer/Layers/Rename/Rename this layer Merged. We will continue to work on Merged unless otherwise stated.
22. Image/Canvas Size/Lock Aspect Ratio Checked/Increase the width and height to 106/Image Placement Centre
23. Selection Tool/Magic Wand/using the following settings/select the transparent border.
Add (Shift)/RGB Value/Tolerance 0/Use all Layers and Contiguous Checked/Feather 0/Anti Alias Checked.
24. Flood Fill Tool/Flood Fill with your Foreground Colour.
25. Effects/3D Effects/Inner Bevel using the following settings:- Bevel 2/Width 5/Smoothness 0/Depth 2/Ambience 0/Shininess 0/ Colour White/Angle 315/Intensity 50/Elevation 30.
26. Selections/Invert.
27. Selections/Promote Selection to Layer
28. Effects/3D Effects/Cutout/using the following settings:- Vertical 0/Horizontal 0/ Opacity 40/Blur 15/Shadow Colour Black/Fill Interior with Colour Unchecked.
29. Deselect
30. Layers/Merge/Merge Visible.
31. Image/Canvas Size/Increase width and height to 146 leaving all other settings the same.
32. Open the Minimized background image you saved earlier and Edit/Copy and close this image.
33. Selection Tool/Magic Wand/Same settings as before/Select the transparent border
34. Edit/Paste into Selection
35. Effects/Plugins/RCS Filter Pack 1/Atomic Split/Using the following Settings. Effect 70.
36. Deselect.
37. Image/Canvas Size/Increase width and height to 156 leaving all other settings the same.
38. Selection Tool/Magic Wand/Same settings as previously used/Select the Transparent Border.
39. Flood fill Tool/Flood Fill with your Foreground colour.
40. Effects/3D Effects/Inner Bevel using the same settings as before.
41. Selections/Select All.
42. Selections/Modify/Contract 30 Pixels
43. Selections/Invert
44. Selections/Promote Selection to Layer
45. Deselect.
46. Layers/Rename. Rename your Promoted Selection Layer Frame 1.
47. Layers/Arrange/Move Down and close Frame 1 by clicking on the eye in your layer palette.
48. Highlight Merged (Top Layer)
49. Image/Canvas Size/Increase height and width to 256 pixels leaving all other settings as they are.
50. Selection Tool/Magic Wand/Same settings as previously used/Select the Transparent Border.
51. Edit/Paste into Selection.
52. Effects/Plugins/RCS Filter Pack 1.0/Atomic Split using the following settings. Effect 120
53. Effects/Geometric Effects/Skew using the following settings.
54. Effects/Plugins/Simple Filters/Top Left Mirror
55. Selections/Promote Selection to Layer
56. Deselect
57. Layer Palette/Highlight Merged
58. Layers/Delete.
59. Highlight your top layer/Selection Tool/Magic Wand/Select the transparent centre of your image.
60. Effects/3D Effects/Cutout using the same settings as before.
61. Deselect
62. Close this layer by clicking on the eye in your layer palette.
63. Open by clicking on the eye in your layer palette Frame 1 and Highlight
64. Selection Tool/Magic Wand Select the transparent centre of this image.
65. Effects/3D Effects/Cutout using the same settings as before.
66. Deselect
67. Open your top layer by clicking on the eye in your layer palette
68. Layers/Merge/Merge Visible. (You should now have two layers, Merged and Raster 1)
69. Working on Merged/Effects/Artistic Effects/Chrome/Use colour #e3e1e2/Flaws/Click through the number of flaws (it only goes up to 8) and see how the light and dark changes. This will vary with each image you use. Choose one of the lighter effects. The higher the number the more interesting and deep your image becomes. For the example below I chose 7 and for the coloured one I chose 1.
70. Open Raster 1 by clicking on the eye in your layer palette but keep merged highlighted.
71. Effects/Texture Effects/Texture/Using the following settings:/Hatch Medium Lump/Size 25/Smoothness 0/Depth 3/ Choose a colour from your image to enhance your frame and adjust the Ambience and Brightness to your liking.
72. Layers/Merge/Merge Visible
73. Window/Duplicate. Minimize this copy. We will use it to create the background.
74. Image/Canvas Size/Lock Aspect Ratio Unchecked/Increase the Width of the canvas to 1024/Placement Centre Left.
75. Layers/Duplicate. You can either mirror this layer or leave it as it is depending on your image.
76. Move Tool/ Move this image so that it just touches the other. Use your arrows to make any minor adjustments. It should fit together seamlessly with possibly just a hint of a shadow to enhance the curve of the frame.
77. Layers/Merge/Merge Visible.
78. Layers/Duplicate. Again you can choose to mirror if you wish.
79. Line this image up and make any slight adjustments if needed using your arrows. It should completely fill the width of your screen without any gaps at the end. If you wish to add your watermark do so at this point.
80. Layers/Merge/Merge Visible.
Minimise this image while we create the background.