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Ellie's Treasures Photoshop/Photoshop Elements Tutorials - Emerald Isle Stationery http://www.ellies-treasures.com/pstuts/emislestatps/emislestatps.html This tutorial will print out on standard 8½" X 11" paper |
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For this tutorial you
will need: Adobe Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. I've done this tutorial in PS CS3 and PSE 9, 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 Bear O'Leary and Shamrock Sheet ©Rainbow Coffi http://www.psp-playground.com/index.php If you use a graphic make sure it is fairly square or crop so it is. Filters used: Eye Candy 3.1 - click here: http://www.ellies-treasures.com/files/plugins/EyeCandy3.zip Simple filters>Quick Tile and Diamonds - available free here: http://www.btinternet.com/~cateran/simple Funhouse filters>Reverb - available free here: http://www.ellies-treasures.com/files/plugins/Funhouse-Filters-old.zip (also included are old Funhouse filters you can't get any more) Fantastic Machines Paint Engine - available free here: http://fantasticmachines.com/store/index.php?cPath=24&osCsid=8d8f54bad4eac8df2f35f6ecebc9ecb1 Quilted Tile from this tutorial: http://www.ellies-treasures.com/universal/quilttile/quilttile.html (pick 2 colors for your stationery first for the gradient) A gold gradient pattern tile, go back to the original tutorial and save that one if you need one. ***************** My plugin windows may look different from yours as I use Filters Unlimited 2 to manage my plugins - available for purchase here http://www.icnet.de/filters_unlimited/ |
| 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. |
| Framed Image |
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1. Open gold
gradient. Edit>Define Pattern>name the gold gradient, and click
ok. Open quilted tile and resize to 75 pixels square. Define pattern for this one as well. (It's important to make it 200X200 first to get the tile right, then reduce the size to make the pattern smaller, it will show up better in the fill). Pick a tube or psd file, one that's fairly square, or a graphic you like. Duplicate and close original. (in Photoshop go to Image>Duplicate, in PSE, File>Duplicate) If using a tube, create new canvas about 400X400, white, select all then copy tube (Control-A then Control-C) and paste as new layer (Control-V) (or in Photoshop, Select>All, Edit>Copy, over to new canvas, Edit>Paste, in PSE Select>All, Edit>Copy, File>New>From Clipboard). If using a graphic make longest side 400 pixels. Pick 2 complementary colors from it, one pale and one dark of the same color. I chose #37C11D, a light bright green, and #245D1E, a dark green for the dark shade. |
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2. check your layer
palette, make sure you are on the background layer, and flood fill with the pale color you chose or another coordinating shade. |
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3. In the layer
palette, select the tube layer, now go to Layer>Layer Style>Drop
Shadow. Settings: Blend Mode: Multiply, Opacity 40%, angle 120, distance 5, spread 2, size 6, contour 1st one, noise 0, anti-aliased not checked, layer knocks out drop shadow checked. (In PSE, go to Styles and Effects Palette, pick Drop Shadows, and click on the Low preset). Layer>Flatten Image or Merge Visible.
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4.
Go to Effects>Eye Candy 3.1>Cutout with these settings Direction
315, |
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5. Select a small
piece of your graphic or tube that will look nice tiled, and Edit>Copy, File>New, click
ok in the next window,
now Edit>Paste, Go to Filter>Simple>Quick Tile. Go to Edit>Define Pattern, give the pattern a name and save. Minimize. At this point you should have 3 patterns defined. The gold, the quilted tile and this tile. |
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6. Add border: Go to
Image>Canvas Size (In PSE it's Image>Resize>Canvas Size), click
the box Relative and add 20 width and height equally (for this step throughout the tutorial pick any color that will contrast with your picture; select with Magic Wand set at Tolerance 0, anti-aliased and contiguous checked. Leave it selected. Add new layer either by clicking on the "New Layer" icon at the bottom left of the layer palette or clicking on the little drop down arrow at the top right of the layer palette and clicking on New Layer or going up to the file menu>Layer>New>Layer Go to Edit>Fill (in PSE Edit>Fill Selection), in fill window click on drop down menu and pick pattern. Choose the pattern you added. Depending on what you see when you fill, you may want to go back to your pattern tile, resize smaller, then define pattern again.
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![]() Keep selected. |
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7. Go to Layer>Layer
Style>Bevel and Emboss>Inner Bevel from dropdown menu, Smooth, Depth 60%, Direction Up, Size 10, Soften 0; angle 120°, altitude 25, contour linear (first one), use global light checked, anti-alias checked, the rest at default, click OK. (in PSE, go to Styles and Effects palette, Pick Bevel for the style, click on Simple Inner which is the 4th one.). Deselect.
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8. Expand
canvas, 20, relative; Select border with Magic Wand. Add new layer. |
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9.
Expand canvas, 20, using Magic Wand, select border, add new
layer. |
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10.
Expand canvas 10, using Magic Wand, select border, add new
layer. |
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11.
Reduce size to about 350-400 at it's tallest. Sharpen, if
needed. |
| HEADER |
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12. 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, flatten image. Repeat Eye Candy cutout as before: Effects>Eye Candy 3.1>Cutout with these settings Direction 315, Distance 0, Blur 15, Opacity 100, color black.
13. Now you will
duplicate all of the steps you did with the frame for the
graphic. |
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14. Now copy framed
image and paste as new layer onto header. Resize this layer as
necessary. You can either make it line up at top and bottom, or make it a bit smaller. See examples below. I also added some shamrocks by the same artist behind the bear and on the other sections. I did have to redo some steps to get them behind the bear as the canvas had to be flattened before adding the cutout in step 4, so if you want to do something like that, do it before you flatten, unlike the absent-minded me! LOL ![]() You're done! Watermark and save as a jpg. |
| BACKGROUND TILE |
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Create new 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 |
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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! |
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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. ~*.:*:.*~.:*:.*~.:*:.*~.:*:.*~.:*:.*~.:*:.*~.:*:.*~ If you resize, go to Adjust (or Effects)>Sharpen or Unsharp Mask set at 2/60/4 |
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Watermark & Save Don't forget to optimize when you save. I usually save at about 8 Lately I've been saving more files as png files as the quality is so much better. The file size is bigger though. |
| If you have any questions or suggestions, email me at this page: http://www.ellies-treasures.com/email/email.html |
| Tutorial was written March 6, 2005 ~*.:*:.*~.:*:.*~.:*:.*~.:*:.*~.:*:.*~.:*:.*~.:*:.*~ 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 |