Paint Shop Pro Tutorials -- Photographic Edges (A Must See Tutorial) |
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Creating Photographic Edge Effects with Paint Shop Pro
PSP 4.1x has some pretty cool features that enable you to create effects that might not be immediately obvious. For example, you've probably seen some of the edges that artists add to their photographs and wonder how they do that. There are a number of methods, of course. One method that I often use is the excellent plug-in filters from Auto F/X. These enable me to put samples together quickly for a client without blowing their whole budget. Even without the filters you can create some nice-looking edges. The following technique demonstrates how to do this in PSP without filters.
Load a photo into PSP. I'll be using a portrait of Marianne (see figure 20.1), one of my favorite models.
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| figure 20.1 |
The photo you see on the screen has been resampled down to save download time and space. The original image is 365x519 and the cut-down version is 200x284. The numbers I report will be the actual numbers I used on the larger portrait.
This step is optional. Because my image was tightly cropped I decided that I needed a little elbow room for the edge effect. To get that extra room I first changed the background color to white (this was because I plan to display this image against a white web page) and then chose Image, Enlarge Canvas. I added about 40 pixels to both the width and the height to make the image 396x553 (see figure 20.2). I also placed a check mark in Center image.
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| figure 20.2 |
With your photo loaded ( and enlarged, if necessary), choose Masks, New, Empty. Nothing seems to happen, right? What has happened, though, is that a mask has been created. Choose Masks, Edit and your image will be replaced by a solid black rectangle. Don't panic! This is the mask. Choose View, Through Mask. If your image is a black and white like mine you'll see a darkened version of your image
Set the foreground color to a white. Select the Paint Brushes tool and set the size quite large (unless, of course, your image is small). I set the size to 60. Select a Paper Texture. Through the course of creating the mask I used a couple of textures including Lunar and Mist, as well as a couple of others. What you're after is a chalky, painterly, haphazard look.
With the Paint Brush tool set draw, in a sketchy manner, around the edges of the photo. Stay away from the center, though. Don't be worried if you don't get the right look immediately. It took me about three of four tries before I got exactly what I was after.
Set the brush size smaller and choose None as the Paper Texture.
Draw around the edge you created staying towards the outside. What you should end up with is something that resembles figure 20.3.
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| figure 20.3 |
Turn off the mask editing by choosing Masks, Edit. You should now see only your image again.
Choose Colors, Adjust, Brightness/Contrast.
In the Brightness/Contrast dialog box set the %Brightness to 100 and leave the %Contrast at 0. Click OK. You should end up with something like my final image (figure 20.4).
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| figure 20.4 |
That's it.... Be sure to check out some of our other Paint Shop Pro tutorials.
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