Paint Shop Pro 7 Tutorial

Decorative Edges and Saving Frame Presets

December 12, 2002

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Part 1: Creating the test file and setting up and saving basic selections to the Alpha Channel.

Make a new file 400 X 400 with a white background, 24 bit color.

Click directly on the swatch to open the pattern dialog box.

I picked Cracked Emerald by clicking the down facing arrow next to the preview thumbnail and locating it from the thumbnail fly out box.

Keep the scale at 100 percent and the angle to 0. Press OK.

Select the whole image by going to Selections on the Menu Bar and picking Select All.

Or alternatively press CTRL + A on the keyboard.

Do a Selections > Modify > Contract from the Menu Bar .

On the Contract Dialog box set
the pixels to 20 and press OK.

Note the Marching Ants marquee has jumped towards the center 20 pixels equally on all sides.

To speed things up later, save this selection to the Alpha Channel.

On the Menu Bar do a Selections > Save to Alpha Channel.

Make sure image you are working on, in this case Image 1 is showing in the Available Documents area and New Channel is showing in the Available Alpha Channel area.

Press OK.

On the New Channel Box, Name the selection Inner Square and Press OK.

Go to Selections > Invert to
select the border area.

Note the Marquee surrounds
20 pixels all around the image.

These two selections will make our job easier since we won't have to recreate them later but just call them forth from the Alpha Channel. :)

Save this file in the PSP format, naming it something like BorderTest.psp.

Part 2: Making 3 Decorative Borders

Edge 1: Escherlike Double Edge using Inner Bevel and Chisel.

Chisel filter is not used very often but comes in handy when you do use it. :) Once you get a grip on it.

Go to Effects> 3D Effects > Inner Bevel on the Menu Bar.

On the Inner Bevel Box set the following.

Bevel to the second one, rounded, from the first row.
Width 10
Depth 11
Ambience 0
Shininess 0
Color White
Angle 315
Intensity 50
Elevation 40.

Press OK to add the Effect.

Go to Selections on the Menu Bar picking Promote to Layer from the fly out box.

Set the background color at the very top above PSP's Color palette to a bright yellow.

Click the right hand swatch and type in 255, 255, 0 in the RGB Color area and press OK.

Chisel works best on a layer.

Leave the Selection on, and with the Promoted Selection active, go to Effects > 3D Effects > Chisel.

Set the Chisel size to 10 and check the background color radio box.

Press OK then Selections > Select None to remove the selection and see the border.

Save this file now in PSP Format and minimize.

Edge 2: Red Metallic Chisel

Create a new file 400 X 400, 24bit, white but this time make the
background transparent.

Load the Border Selection from the Alpha Channel, by going to Selections > Load from Alpha Channel.

Pick the Border and press OK.

Click on the swatch itself to access the gradient box.

Click the down triangle next to the preview swatch and find Red Metallic from the gradient preview area.

Set the style to linear, the Angle to 137 and the Repeats to 2.

Use the Flood Fill tool and click inside the selection to fill the border with the gradient fill.

Let's add some "metallic" to this border.

Go to Effects > Noise > Add Noise.. from the Menu Bar.

On the Noise dialog box, set the Percent slider to 19 or so and check the Uniform radio box.

Press OK.

Note the little dots in the border.

Next do an Effects > Blur > Motion blur from the Menu Bar and set the following on the Blur dialog box.

Angle about 43 and Intensity 4.

Press OK

Now we have a brushed finish.

Contract the selection.
Selections > Contract...and set to 5 pixels.

Next Add the Chisel effect.

Go to Effects > 3D Effects > Chisel from the Menu Bar and set the Chisel to 10 and check the Background color.

Press OK

Save this file as Red Metallic.psp and close
if you are Ram Challenged.

Leave the BorderTest Image open because it has our selections in the Alpha channel.

BTW, you can change the Color of the Frame by going to Colors > Colorize from the Menu Bar. Play with this on your own.

Create yet another new file 400 X 400 with Transparent background just the last one.

Load the Border Selection from the Alpha channel from the Selections word on the Menu Bar.

Activate the Picture Tube tool from the Tool Palette.

On the Tool Options Palette, click the
down facing arrow on next to the thumbnail
image and select any tube you want from
the fly out box.

I picked my River Rock tube.

Spray around in the border area, filling
all the clear spaces with the tube.

On the options palette, change the size
of the tube down if you want and spray
over the images already there.

Just gives it some extra interest.

Go to Selections on the Layer Palette >
Promote to layer.

On the layer palette, right click on the promoted selection layer and rename to Outside.

Selections > Select None from the Menu Bar.

Make sure the Outside layer is highlighted on the layer palette then go to Effects, 3D Effects > Inner Bevel...

Set the following on the Dialog box:

Bevel: Round,
Width 10,
Smoothness 15,
Depth 9,
Ambience 8,
Shininess 0,
Color Green ( 189, 227, 141 RGB) set by clicking on the swatch
Angle 0,
Intensity 40
Elevation 47.

Press OK.

The edge should look like mine color and bevel wise.

Pick the Magic Wand tool set to Match Mode RGB Value Tolerance 30, 0 Feather on the Tool Options Palette.

Click in the clear area inside the
border to select it.

Do a Selections > Contract... 20 Pixels
from the Menu Bar.

Invert the Selection. Selections > Invert from the Menu Bar.

Set the Background Color to Pattern Fill, then select any pattern.

I used one called Pavement at scaled down to 67 percent.

Press OK.

Set the Background Color at the top of PSP, not in the Styles area, to a medium green picked up from the image.

I chose RGB 159, 199, 125

Set the Foreground Color Style to Solid, but the color itself doesn't matter at this point.

The color palette area should look like this.

Pick the Flood Fill tool.

Set the tolerance to 200 on the Layer palette
and Opacity to 100.

Click the Glasses icon next to the Outside layer on the layer palette to turn it off.

RIGHT CLICK inside the selection to fill
the clear area, then RIGHT click in the
colored area to fill it.

(Right clicking fills the area with Background Color Style.)

Do a Selections, Promote to Layer
from the Selections Menu.

Rename this layer Middle by right clicking
on its name on the layer palette.

Go to Effects > Blur >
Gaussian Blur and set
the radius to 2.50 pixels
on the layer palette.

Do a Selections > Select None from the Layer Palette.

Make sure the Middle layer is highlighted on the layer palette.

Effects > 3D Effects > Inner Bevel..

Change the settings to Width 15
Smoothness 15
Shininess 10.

Press OK and inspect the finished layer.

Click the Glasses Icon next to the Outside layer turning it on.

The image should look like this.

On the Layer palette, highlight layer one, making it the active layer.

Turn off the visibility on the Middle and Outside layer by clicking the glasses icons next to their layers.

Activate the Magic Wand tool
on the layer palette.

Set its options to RGB for the match
mode and tolerance 30. Feather 0.

Click in the checkerboard
transparent area to select it.

Do a Selections > Modify >Contract... 10 pixels.

Selections > Invert from the Menu Bar.

Note that green becomes the foreground color
on the Foreground Style swatch, if you set that to solid before.

If its not set to solid, click the right facing triangle
and do it now.

Press the Delete key on the keyboard
to clear the current pattern.

Then click inside the selection to fill it
with the foreground green.

Go to Effects > 3D Effects > Chisel.

Set the Dialog box as follows.

Size 16.
Check the Background color radio box.

Press OK.

Remove the selection.

Selections > Select None
from the menu bar.

Go to Effects > Noise>
Add Noise.

Set the percent slider to 10 and check the Uniform radio button.

Press OK.

Turn on each of the Middle and Outside layers to see the
finished frame.

Save the file with
the layers intact as Rolling Stone.psp

Actually we have several variations we can use here. Try using each layer individually, then just middle and outside then outside and layer one, then middle and layer one. Cool eh? See Below for 6 other variations.

Part 3: Saving as a Frame Preset

On RollingStone.psp, make sure
all the layers are turned on.

Right click one of the layers
on the layer palette picking
Merge > Merge Visible
from the fly out box.

One merged layer with a transparent middle comprises the image.

Go to File > Save a Copy As
from the Menu bar.

On the Save Copy As dialog box, browse to the Paint Shop Pro 7 Folder on the hard drive, then pick the Frames Folder.

Name the file and add the pfr extension.

In Save as type, make sure the Paint Shop Pro image (psp jsl pfr tub) is showing, or select it from the drop down box. Then press the save button!

On the original BorderTest Image, to prepare it for framing, remove the selection from the image. Right click and delete the background layer on the layer palette.

Do a Save a Copy as just like before. On the Red Metallic, reopen if closed, merge the visible layers and Save a Copy as to add to your Frames folder.

Try out the frames on an image.

Since we made them square,
open or make a square image.

Go to Image > Picture Frame from the
menu bar and follow the instructions.

I put on the Rolling Stone frame then did a Colors > Colorize from the Menu Bar to match the frame to the image better.