Ellie's Treasures PhotoImpact Tuts_Emerald Isle Stationery

Art ©Rainbow Coffi
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Stationery Header with matching background, but you can also make just the framed part for a tag or framed graphic.

They will both open in a new window and print out on standard 8½" X 11" paper

For information about which fonts, programs, etc I used to construct my pages and my headers, click here.

For this tutorial you will need:
PhotoImpact: Ulead PhotoImpact. I've done this tutorial in PI XL. I believe it can be done in most versions.
You may have to look around for the commands but it's likely they are there.
A tube, psd file, or graphic: I used Erin's Harp and Shamrock Set by Rainbow Coffi
If you use a graphic make sure it is fairly square or crop so it is.
Filters used:
Eye Candy 3.1 - click here
Simple filters>Quick Tile and Diamonds - available free here
Funhouse filters>Reverb - available free here - also included are old Funhouse filters you can't get any more
Fantastic Machines Paint Engine - available free here
Quilted Tile from this tutorial (pick 2 colors for your stationery first for the gradient)
The gold gradient pattern I used, you can right click and save this one

My plugin windows may look different from yours as I use Filters Unlimited 2 to manage my plugins -
available for purchase here.
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I am assuming you know the basics of PhotoImpact and where the tools can be located.
This is an extremely easy tutorial and can be done by beginners.
There are a lot of steps and it seems long but it's very easy.

Here are some arrows and bars you can drag and drop where you need to mark or underline where you are. .
Just left click and drag to where you want it then let go.
They will stay where you put them until you close your browser.

You can also drag this example with you

Drag the picture just above with you as you work so it's handy for reference.
Open your image or tube, duplicate (Control-D), and close the original. Open gold gradient tile and quilted tile you made and minimize.

Let's Start!

Framed Image

1. Working with your duplicate tube or graphic, reduce it in size to about 375 at tallest point.
Pick 2 complementary shades from it, one pale and one darker of the same color.
I chose #C6EBB7, a pale green, and #3C612E for the darker shade.

Open gold gradient tile and minimize.
Make the quilted tile from this tutorial, using the two colors you picked from your graphic. It's very quick and easy.
Resize the quilted tile to about 25% of it's size, if you made it 200X200, reduce it to 50X50. Minimize.
Create new white canvas 400X400, Edit>Copy tube (Control-C) and Edit>Paste>As object (Control-V) in the canvas. Center it and deselect it.
Fill canvas with one of the colors you chose, probably the light one would look best.
Add drop shadow to tube. You can either pick a soft one going all around (shadow #5: 0/101/5/black)
or a regular drop shadow, of about 2/2/50/100/5/black

2. Effect>Eye Candy 3.1>Cutout, these settings: angle 315, distance 0, blur 15, opacity 100, shadow color black, solid fill not checked.

3. Select a small piece that will look nice tiled, and Edit>Copy, Edit>Paste as new image, right click, merge all,
Effect>Simple>Quick Tile, Edit>Copy, minimize.

4. Back to your picture, Format>Expand Canvas, expand sides equally checked, 10, color will be whatever is not in your main graphic.

Using magic wand (click on the arrow next to the selection tool and you'll find the magic wand),
select the border, now go to Edit>Fill> Image tab, check Clipboard and Tile. Leave selected.
Go to Easy Palette>Button Gallery>A21, double click and it will be applied to the border. Deselect.

5. Add border, 10, color other than what's in pic, select with Magic Wand and fill with the light color you selected.
Go to Easy Palette>Button Gallery>A21, double click and it will be applied to the border. Deselect.

6. Maximize your quilt tile. Edit>Copy. Mine looks like this.
I applied Simple>Zoom Out and Flip after Simple>Diamonds in the Quilted Tile tut.

Go to the picture you're working on, add border 10, flood fill with quilted tile pattern.
Easy Palette>Button Gallery>AnyShapeButton>A28. Double click to apply. Leave it selected.
Go to Effect>Eye Candy 3.1, Inner Bevel, bevel width 10, bevel shape, button, smoothness 3, shadow depth 3,
highlight brightness 53, highlight sharpness 66, direction 135, inclination 50. Deselect.

7. Maximize the gold gradient tile, Edit>Copy,
Back to your graphic, Expand Canvas, Expand sides equally, 5, any color not in preceding border.
Edit>Fill>Image>Clipboard>Tiled.
Easy Palette>Button Gallery>AnyShapeButton>A23. Do not double click but right click on A23,
click on variations and pick the bottom left thumbnail.

Leave selected.

Go to Effect>Eye Candy 3.1>Cutout, these settings: direction 315, distance 0, blur 2, opacity 51, shadow color black, solid fill unchecked.

Now go to Effect>Sharpen>pick top middle thumbnail.

Deselect. Merge all.

8. You can leave it as is or add some embellishments. I had some shamrocks from the same artist (Rainbow Coffi)
so I added them around the feet of the harp and will add some to the other parts of the header later (as shown below).
Resize it back down to 400X400. Add your credits and watermarks.
See tips at the bottom of the tut for resizing and watermarking.

HEADER

9. Open new canvas 1200 X height of your frame minus 50 (so if you made your framed graphic 400, it should be 1200 wide X 350 high).
Flood fill with the pale color you picked, merge all. (You can use the darker color you picked here if it would look better).
At this point, you can optionally apply the same effect used in the background tile,
Fantastic Machines Paint Engine, Cracks preset, as outlined in the Background part of the tutorial below.

10. Now we will repeat all of the steps as done with the frame, starting with the Eye Candy cutout
and on to the end of the gold fill, bevel, cutout, and sharpen. It will end up framed exactly as your framed graphic was.
STEPS TO FRAME HEADER
1. the Eye Candy cutout: these settings: angle 315, distance 0, blur 15, opacity 100, shadow color black, solid fill not checked.
2. Border 1: expand 10, Pattern fill, double click button A21
3. Border 2: expand 10, fill w pale color, double click button A21
4. Border 3: expand 10, fill w quilt pattern, double click button A28, then Eye Candy inner bevel as above: bevel width 10, bevel shape, button,
    smoothness 3, shadow depth 3, highlight brightness 53, highlight sharpness 66, direction 135, inclination 50.
5. Border 4: expand 5, flood fill w gold gradient, Easy Palette>Button Gallery>AnyShapeButton>A23. Don't double click
   but right click on A23, click on variations and pick the bottom left thumbnail. Leave selected.
   Go to Effect>Eye Candy 3.1>Cutout, these settings: direction 315, distance 0, blur 2, opacity 51, shadow color black, solid fill unchecked.
   Go to Effect>Sharpen>Sharpen, pick top middle thumbnail. Deselect. Right click, merge all.
Resize your header back to 1200, Keep Aspect Ratio checked.

11. Now copy framed image and paste as new layer onto header. Resize this layer as necessary
(use the transform button or go to Format>Image Size>Apply to Selected Object).
You can either make it line up at top and bottom, or make it a bit smaller.
This one lined up at perfectly at top and bottom without resizing. I also added more of the shamrocks to both sides of the header.
Do whatever you want to do here but make sure you don't use tubes from 2 different artists, most Terms of Use don't allow that.

BACKGROUND TILE

Create new white canvas 200X200, flood fill with either of the colors you chose at the beginning.
Go to Effects>Fantastic Machines>Paint Engine, and apply the Cracks preset.
In case you don't have the preset, see screenshot for the settings.
Make sure the wrap edges box is checked to make the tile seamless.

ASSEMBLE IN LETTER CREATOR

1 Make sure Show Sample Text is checked at the bottom of the window.
   Click on the header tab, insert the header you made; click on Center.
2 Click on the Body tab, click on Image, and browse to the tile you made. Pick sample and put eyedropper on the tile to match color,
so the background color now matches your tile. Now click on "Tile" to tile the image.
3 Choose a font and font size. I recommend not going below 18 for most fonts as they end up too small to read.
4 Choose a text color and link color. Please be very careful that you don't pick a
   shade or color too close to the background or it will be hard to read. Pick a signature color as well.
5 Set the margins: set the top margin to 10, but don't change the left or right margin
   (in this case, not true in most cases but header is large).
6 Click on the Footer tab, in the footer, it's good to put the name of your font, credit the artist,
put in your license number if you have one, credit the scrapkit maker as well.
and link to them if they have a website (to link, just select the text, click on the
   link icon that's just above the footer edit window, it's the one on the right.
   When the little window opens, put the address in there).
   Highlight what you typed and click on Center, then pick the font you used for the body of the stationery or use a simple font.
I usually use Verdana in size 8 as it's a system font so everyone has it, and it's easy to read as well.
   You don't need to change the color, the program does that automatically for you to match the text and link colors
   you chose for the stationery (to see that, scroll down in the sample text to the footer and you will see that it's changed).
7 Click on the 3D Effects tab, and pick an animation you like for all of the categories there.
8 Click on the Finish tab and name your stationery in Letter Name.
   I add my initials to it so it's unique and won't get overwritten.
   In Collection Name, pick a folder that you would like the stationery to install to.
   I name mine Ellie's Treasures Christmas, Ellie's Treasures Floral, etc. For Type, pick Letter.
   In the Text box, I have the copyright symbol and my company name.
   For the copyright symbol, hold down the alt key,    while on the number pad you type in 0169,
let go of the alt key and the copyright symbol will be there.
   In the little window below that, you can choose Email in the dropdown menu and add your email address
   to the window next to it, or you can leave it at URL and put your website address in there.
   Click on Save Project and then click on Add to Incredimail. You're done!

Resizing
To resize, make sure, to retain the texture and the clarity, resize at 90% bicubic and repeat till you get close to the size you want.
At that point you can resize by pixels as usual. You will find this makes a big difference in your final result.
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If you resize, go to Adjust (or Effects)>Sharpen (top left thumb)
or Unsharp Mask (Options>2/50/2)
or Photo (or Format depending on version)>Focus and go up one level, pick the thumbnail top right.

Watermark & Save
Web>Image Optimizer>jpg, I usually optimize at about 90.
Lately I've been saving more files as png files as the quality is so much better. The file size is bigger though.
When I save a png through the Image Optimizer, I click on the Filter drop-down menu and pick "All".
This reduces the file size quite a bit and it still has a good quality.

If you have any questions or suggestions, click on the email button below to contact me. Have a wonderful day!
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Tutorial was written March 6, 2005
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These tutorials are all my own creations.
Any resemblance to any other tutorial is purely coincidental and unintentional.
Feel free to share any of my tutorials on this site by a link back to my site,
but do not copy and send the entire tutorial to anyone or any group.
You may also save it to your hard drive (go to File>Save As, and save as an mht file-
this will save the pictures with the page in one single file and will open in a browser)
or print it out for your own personal use
©2003-2011 Ellie's Treasures

Payless Shoe Source

Alternate versions

The art in this beautiful picture is by Tammy J McCoy aka LadyBlue and used with permission

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Webpage Design Information
The lacy tile webpage background was made in PhotoImpact with a tutorial by Deb DeHaven
Sadly, she passed away and her site is gone.
The font I used for all of the text on the buttons is BrockScript
The font I used for the "Emerald Isle Stationery" tutorial header is Zola.
Click on the font name to download the font.
I use PhotoImpact to make all of my headers due to the amazing
3D text it has and the wonderful presets available free online
Most of the presets I use are either the ones that come with PhotoImpact, usually the Gel ones,
or from Deb's PI Tutorials and More (see below) or Carol Oyl's site
This is the address to Deb's old pages
http://www.fortunecity.com/skyscraper/millenit/1716/pitutorials/objects/presets/presets1.html
I can't find any links to her new pages but the presets are still on this page for download.
For more sites to find PI Presets, take a look at my Great Beginnings page.