Ellie's Treasures Photoshop/Photoshop Elements Tuts Emerald Isle Stationery

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

For this tutorial you will need:
Adobe Photoshop Elements - available for purchase here
OR
Adobe Photoshop - available for purchase here

Filters and materials needed
A tube, psd file, or graphic
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 colors for your stationery first)
The gold gradient pattern I used, 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.
I am assuming you know the basics of Photoshop/Photoshop Elements and where the tools can be located.

Let's Get Started!

FRAMED IMAGE

1. Open gold gradient. Edit>Define Pattern>name the gold gradient, and click ok.
Open quilted tile and resize to 50 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, copy tube and paste as new layer in new canvas
(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 #D3F9C4, a pale green, and #294F1B, a dark green for the dark shade.

2. check your layer palette, make sure you are on the background layer, and flood fill with the pale color you chose.

3. In the layer palette, select the tube layer, now go to Layer>Layer Style>Drop Shadow.
Settings: Blend Mode: Multiply, Opacity 80%, angle 120, distance 2, spread 0, size 2,
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.

4. Go to Effects>Eye Candy 3.1>Cutout with these settings Direction 315,
Distance 0, Blur 15, Opacity 100, color black.

5. Select a small piece that will look nice tiled, and Edit>Copy, File>New, click ok in the next window,
now Edit>Paste, 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.

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
- in Photoshop it will use the background color, in PSE you can choose the color in the canvas size window);
select with Magic Wand set at Tolerance 0, anti-aliased and contiguous checked. Leave it selected.
Right click on background layer in layer palette and click on Layer via copy
(if you don't see that option, make sure you are right on the word "background").
Select border again in this 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.
I reduced the size of my pattern by 1/2 to make a nice pattern in the fill.

7. Go to Layer>Layer Style>Bevel and Emboss>Inner Bevel from dropdown menu,
Smooth, Depth 50%, Direction Up, Size 10, Soften 0; angle 120, altitude 25, contour linear (first one),
use global light checked, the rest at default, click OK.
(in PSE, go to Styles and Effects palette, Pick Bevel for the style, click on simple pillow Bevel.)
Layer, flatten image.

8. Expand canvas, 20, Select border with Magic Wand. Right click on background layer in layer palette and click on Layer via copy.
Select border again on this new layer, flood fill with color you filled canvas with
or the darker color, whatever you think will suit better.
Go to Layer>Layer Style>Bevel and Emboss>Inner Bevel from dropdown menu, Smooth, Depth 70%,
Direction Up, Size 10, Soften 0; angle 120, altitude 30, contour linear (first one), use global light checked,
the rest at default, click OK. (In PSE, click on Simple Pillow in the Bevel window again).
Layer, flatten image. Deselect.

9. Expand canvas, 20, using Magic Wand, select border, right click on layer in layer palette,
click on layer via copy. Select border again, Edit>Fill>Pattern>choose the quilted tile pattern. Leave selected.

10. Go to Layer>Layer Style>Bevel and Emboss. Pick Inner Bevel from dropdown menu, leave all at default,
Smooth, Depth 100%, Direction Up, Size 5, Soften 0; angle 120, altitude 30, contour linear (first one),
use global light checked. Don't click ok yet. On the left menu, right under Bevel and Emboss, you will see a subcategory
called Contour, check that box. Click OK. (In PSE, click on Simple Pillow in the Bevel window).
Layer, flatten image. Deselect.

11. Expand canvas 10, using Magic Wand, select border, right click on layer in layer palette, click on layer via copy.
Select border again, Edit>Fill>Pattern>choose the gold gradient pattern. Leave selected.

12. Go to Layer>Layer Style>Bevel and Emboss. Pick Inner Bevel from dropdown menu, leave all at default -
Smooth, Depth 100%, Direction Up, Size 5, Soften 0; angle 120, altitude 30, contour linear (first one),
use global light checked, the rest at default. Don't click ok yet. On the left menu, right under Bevel and Emboss,
you will see a subcategory called Contour, check that box. Click OK.
(In PSE, go to Styles and Effects palette again, pick bevel and pick Simple Sharp Inner).
Filter>Sharpen>Sharpen. Deselect.
Layer, flatten image.

13. Reduce size to about 350-400 at it's tallest. Filter>Sharpen, if needed.
Add watermark, done with this part. Probably a good time to save if you haven't yet.

HEADER

13 open new canvas 1024 X height of your frame minus 50, which should be about 350 if you left it at 400.
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.

14 Now you will duplicate all of the steps you did with the frame for the graphic.
It would probably be easier just to scroll back up to step 6 and repeat all of the steps
till you are done to the end of the gold and sharpen.
Border 1: steps 6 & 7, the pattern tile border
step 8, the solid color border
steps 9 & 10, the quilted tile border
steps 11 & 12, the gold border

Now resize, all layers, make the width 1024 again. Sharpen if needed. Deselect. Another good time to save.

15. 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.
You're done! Watermark and save as a jpg.

This sample is smaller than your result, I resized it as a sample for this page.

BACKGROUND

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

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. 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 or tube maker
   if you know that information 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.
   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!

If you have any questions or suggestions, click on the email button below to contact me. Have a wonderful day!

Some other samples - these samples are smaller than your result, I resized them as samples for this page.

For this one, I resized the framed graphic to 93%, resize all layers unchecked.

The art in this beautiful picture is by Tammy J aka LadyBlue

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.
©2005 Ellie's Treasures

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