Ziggered Frame and Background

 My thanks as always to my fabulous friends at Force Fantastic who test all of my tutorials.

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

Here is what you will be making. (Not to scale)

Misted Tube I have used is by Yoka

This is what you need:-

PSP  9 or X

A Tube

Simple Filters

Filter Factory G Here

Kiwi's Oelfilter Here

Mehdi Melt Filter Here

Let's get started!

1.  Open your chosen tube in PSP.  Tubes that contain little or no black work best for this tutorial. 

2.  Resize your tube so that it is 250 pixels on it's longest side.

3.  Edit/Copy

4.  Window/Duplicate your tube image and close the original.

5.  Image/Resize.  Resize your duplicate tube image so that it is 250 x 250 pixels square.

6.  Dropper Tool/From your tube choose a darker foreground colour. (Go for midtones rather than really dark colours as this will be the background colour of your letter).  Then choose a lighter complimentary background colour. 

7.  Layers/New Raster Layer

8.  Layers/Arrange/Send to Bottom.

9.  Flood Fill Tool/Flood fill this layer with your lighter background colour .

10.  Layers/Merge/Merge all Flatten

11.  Effects/Image Effects/Seamless Tiling at Default.

12.  Adjust/Blur/Gaussian Blur/Radius 25

13.  Window/Duplicate.  Minimise the duplicate image until later

14.  Effects/Distortion Effects/Displacement Maps/using the following settings:-Grain Long Deep/Tile Map to Cover Image/Size 40/Blur 0/3D Surface/Intensity 40/Rotation 0/Repeat.

15.  Edit/Paste as New Layer/paste your tube onto your background image.

16.  Effects/3D Effects/Drop Shadow using the following settings (these settings will be constant throughout this tutorial):- Vertical and Horizontal 2/Opacity 40/Blur/7/Colour Black/Shadow on New Layer UNCHECKED.

Note:- If, like me you are using a misted tube, or a masked graphic leave this step out.

17.  Layers/Merge/Merge all Flatten.

18.  Minimize this image and maximize your saved copy of the background.

19.  Effects/Plugins/Filter Factory G/Blast'Em using the following settings:-Diffusion 128/Brighten\Normal\Darken 128

20.  Effects/Plugins/Mehdi Filters/Melt/Default settings (as it opens). Size 25/Amount 50/Ratio 0

21.  Effects/Image Effects/Seamless Tiling at Default.

22.  Materials Palette/FOREGROUND/Pattern/locate the image you have just created and select it as a pattern/Angle 0/Scale 100 (This will be referred to as your FOREGROUND pattern)

23.  Minimize the image.

24.  File/New/Foreground COLOUR/Create a new raster  image 250 x 250 pixels.

25.  Adjust/Add/Remove Noise/Add Noise using the following settings:-Uniform/Noise 20/Monochrome CHECKED

26.  Effects/Plugins/Mehdi Melt/using the same settings as before.

27.  Effects/Image Effects/Seamless Tiling/Mirror/Bi-Directional

28.  Materials Palette/BACKGROUND/Pattern/locate the image you have just created and select it as a pattern/Angle 0/Scale 100. (This will be referred to as your BACKGROUND pattern. Make sure you have the patterns in the correct places in your Materials Palette.

29.  Minimize this image.

30.   Maximise your prepared background image with the tube and continue as follows:-

31.  Image/Add Borders/ 10 pixels/Symmetric/in a colour not contained in your image

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

33.  Flood Fill Tool/Flood fill with your BACKGROUND PATTERN.

34.  Selections/Invert

35.  Effects/3D Effects/Drop Shadow

36.  Repeat Drop Shadow using minus settings.

37.  De-select

38.  Image/Add Borders/30 pixels/Symmetric

39.  Layers/New Raster Layer

40.  Flood Fill Tool/Flood fill this layer with your darker foreground COLOUR.

41.  Selections/Custom Selection/using the following settings:-Top 0/Left 0/Right/165/Bottom 330

42.  Flood Fill Tool/Flood Fill the selection with your lighter background COLOUR.

44.  Effects/Plugins/Kiwi's Oelfilter/Zig-Zack using the following settings:-Schnippel horizontal 51/Schnippel vertical 2/Bewegen auf/ab: 128/Bewegen li/re: 191

45.  Selection Tool/Magic Wand/same settings/select the triangular shapes down the right side of your image.

46.  Press Delete on your keyboard.

48.  Flood Fill Tool/Flood fill the selection with your FOREGROUND PATTERN:-

49.  De-select

54.  Effects/3D Effects/Inner Bevel using the following settings:- (if your image is particularly dark you can adjust the ambience and shininess settings to your liking) Bevel 2/Width 17/Smoothness 50/Depth 4/Ambience 0/Shininess 0/Colour White/Angle 315/Intensity 45/Elevation 37.

55.  Selections/Invert.

56.  Effects/3D Effects/Cutout using the following settings:-Vertical and Horizontal 0/Opacity 35/Blur 10/Colour Black/Fill interior with colour UNCHECKED

57.  Deselect

58.  Effects/3D Effects/Drop Shadow (plus settings)

59.  Image/Add Borders/in a colour not contained in your image/using the following settings:- Top 30/Left 30/Bottom 30/Right 40/Symmetric UNCHECKED

60.  Selection Tool/Magic Wand/Select the border

61.  Flood Fill Tool/Flood Fill with your BACKGROUND PATTERN

62.  Selections/Invert

63. Effects/3D Effects/Cutout using the same settings as before.

64.  Selections/Modify/Expand 2

65.  Selections/Invert

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

63.  De-select

64.  Image/Add Borders/30 Pixels/Symmetric

65.  Layers/New Raster Layer

66.  Flood Fill Tool/Flood Fill this layer with your foreground COLOUR

67.  Selection Tool/Custom Selection using the following settings:-Top 0/|Left 0/Bottom 450/Right 230.

68.  Repeat Steps 42 to 58

69.  Layer Palette/Top Raster 1 Layer/hold down your left mouse button and drag this layer into your workspace.

70.  Minimize this image until later

71.  Image/Add Borders/Using the following settings: Top 10/Left 10/Bottom 10/Right 20/Symmetric UNCHECKED

72.  Selection Tool/Magic Wand/Select the Border

73.  Flood Fill Tool/Flood fill the border with your BACKGROUND PATTERN

74.  Selections/Invert

75.  Effects/3D Effects/Cutout using the same settings.

76.  Selections/Modify/Expand 2

77.  Selections/Invert

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

79.  De-select.

Add your watermark if desired

Your main framed image is now complete.  Save as a Jpeg with the compression at 25 and close the image.

OK. Let's quickly make our sidebars and background.

1.  Maximize the frame layer you saved earlier.

2.  Image/Resize/Resize using the following settings:- Width and Height 15/PERCENT CHECKED/Resample using Smart Size/Lock Aspect Ratio and Resize all Layers CHECKED.

3.  Adjust/Sharpness/Sharpen

4.  Image/Canvas Size/Leave the width at 69/Double the height to 136/Placement click the centre top arrow.

5.  Layers/Duplicate

6.  Image/Mirror

7.  Image/Flip

8.  Layers/Merge/Merge Visible

9.  Image/Canvas Size/Increase the width to 1007/Leave the height as it is/Image Placement click on the centre left arrow.

10.  Effects/3D Effects/Drop Shadow

11.  Layers/Duplicate

12.  Image/Mirror

13.  Layers/New Raster Layer

14.  Layers/Arrange/Send to Bottom

15.  Flood Fill Tool/Flood Fill with your BACKGROUND pattern

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

17.  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 placing your background image in the body section and tiling.  Set your text at around 85 to 90 left and right so that it doesn't obscure the sidebars.  Place your framed image in the header section placed centre, complete your footer details and if you wish, add a link back to my site at www.force50.co.uk so that others can try this tutorial.

I used a darker tube for this example and adjusted the Ambience and Shininess when I added the inner bevel and also chose a lighter background and foreground colour so that the effect wasn't too harsh.

Tube I used for this image is by Sonja

For this example a graphic was used masked with 20-20 before adding to the background and then completing the tutorial the same way.

I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial.  Let me know here

Tricia ©

July 22nd 2006

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