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Option 1 - Bordered Wallpaper |
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For this tutorial you will need: ULead PhotoImpact - available for purchase here or Adobe Photoshop - available for purchase here or Adobe Photoshop Elements - available for purchase here or Jasc Paint Shop Pro - available for purchase here This tutorial will work in any of these programs. Filters and Materials needed Option 1 Your side or top bordered strip Option 2 (click here to go to option 2 tutorial) Picture and tile you want to make into wallpaper My wallpaper templates - get them here Super Blade Pro filter (you can purchase it here) or Eye Candy (you can get it free here) or PhotoImpact Presets Presets for PhotoImpact or Super Blade Pro (see Great Beginnings page for some sites)
I am assuming you know the basics of your graphics program and where
the tools can be located. |
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Let's get started! Very easy. |
| 1. Create a new canvas, 1280 X 300 pixels (I always use 1280 wide as it will fit most monitors, small to large. |
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OPTION 1 Using a side border or stationery strip  PSP: open the strip, go to palette, and pick material. Find the strip in your patterns and flood fill the wallpaper canvas at angle 0, size 100.  PI: open strip, Edit>copy, go to wallpaper canvas, go to Edit>Fill, Image, check Clipboard, tile.  PS-PSE: Open strip, with it selected, go to Edit>Define pattern, give it a name and it will now be in patterns.  Now go to Edit>Fill>Pattern or *Layer>New Fill Layer>Pattern (the first option doesn't make a new layer, the second one does), and your canvas will fill with your pattern. *If you want to apply a bevel, or other layer styles, such as with the nested table type below, you have to pick the Layer>New Fill Layer method.  You will end up with this  For most wallpaper, you won't have to mute it, as it can take stronger color and pattern than stationery would, as you don't have to write on it. |
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Watermark. I usually watermark in the top right corner, but it depends on the picture used, sometimes I use the bottom right corner I usually change the blend mode to overlay, lighting (PI), soft light, a mode that gives a nice effect but is not too harsh or detracting from the picture, but just gives a soft or blended in effect.  |
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You're done! Save as
a jpg. Don't forget to optimize so it's not too large in
filesize but no quality is lost. In PSP, use the Image Optimizer In PI go to Web, Image Optimizer. I usually find that turning the quality to about 60 is a good compromise In PS or PSE, a window will come up when you save asking you to pick a quality to save at. |
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OPTION 2 Materials needed (click here) Making nested table wallpaper Doing the Center Here are the elements I used for this wallpaper 
 1 Open one of my template jpgs. This is the one titled 1 wide, 1 narrow  2 Pick a color or two from your main graphic or choose the pattern you want to fill it with You can apply a texture as well to this centre fill as well. 3 With magic wand, pick the center, I made all of the templates with bright contrasting colors so they would be easy to select. 4 Fill w your choice of color, pattern, texture.  5. Copy-paste your main graphic in the centre  |
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Borders 6 Do the borders - pick with magic wand and then fill. Here's the PI Fill window Now either apply a preset such as with SuperBladePro or in PhotoImpact you can also use some of the presets in the Material or Material Attribute galleries or any of the imported ones you found on the web or Bevel the borders in your program, see below for instructions for each program For the very narrow borders, they look nice if they are filled with a metallic, silver or gold, or a darker or brighter color of the color you picked for the center or larger borders. Here it is after outer border is filled  Here it is after beveling the outer border  Here it is after filling and beveling the small inner border  |
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Beveling PSP, Effects>3D>Inner Bevel  or Buttonize  ***************** PI you can use the Button, Material Attribute or Material gallery - if you do this you have to right click on the selection, convert to object, right click again, convert object type from text-image to path then go to your Easy Palette and in the Gallery side, choose a preset from the Button Gallery, or Material Attribute Gallery Bevel or preset, Material Gallery - any of the presets  ***************** PS: go to Layer>Styles>Inner Bevel Before you bevel, you need to make sure you are in the top layer, and then use Layer>New Fill layer and pick your pattern or a color. Then in the layer palette, right click on that new layer and pick Rasterize layer.  ***************** PSE go to the layer styles in the palette on the right and double click on one of the inner bevels.  Any graphic program: you can use Super Blade Pro, there are thousands of beautiful free presets on the web (see my Great Beginnings page for some sites) When using Super Blade Pro, make sure you keep the fill color light as the color will effect how the preset looks after applying. or Eye Candy, see settings below or In PI you can get some of the great PI presets available (see my Great Beginnings page for some sites) In any program you can use Eye Candy 3, pick inner bevel and set it as shown for the wide border.  and use these setting for a narrow border  All of the beveling settings are at your own discretion or judgement. Just play with the settings till you see one you like. If you use Super Blade Pro in any graphic program or presets in PhotoImpact you won't need to bevel, that will be part of the preset. |
| Merge all or flatten image, watermark and you're done! |
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PhotoImpact This one was done in PhotoImpact. I used Button>Any Shape>A01 for both of the borders,  PI - second example - I filled outer border with same fill as I used for the center section. I used Button>Any Shape>A23 for outer border and Super Blade Pro>Cursed Creations>Simply Platinum for the small inner border.  |
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PSP I made this one in PSP and I used the template 1 wide, 1 narrow, 3 tiny. Outer border plaid and then I applied an inner bevel, tiny borders filled w gold gradient and inner bevel, then drop shadow; narrow border filled w orange from the graphic, inner bevel. Drop shadow on the main picture.  |
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PHOTOSHOP I made this one in Photoshop and used the 1 wide, 1 narrow, 2 tiny template. I found that I needed to flatten image between selecting, filling and applying inner bevel to each part as it seemed overly hard to get the fill layer and layer styles options to show up for that layer. I always pick the easy way. LOL For the outer border I used Eye Candy Inner Bevel, and for the 2 tiny copper borders I used Photoshop Layer Styles>Inner Bevel. Super Blade Pro would work too but I have too many filters in PS and it won't show a lot of filters in the menu so I couldn't get to the bottom ones.  |
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PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS I made the next one in Photoshop Elements: I used the template with one narrow border and 1 wide. When I was done I added a 15 pixel outside border, filled it w color and applied bevel. I then resized it back to 1280X1024. In sequence, this is what I did 1 Starting from the inside, I filled with the background tile I was using, 2 I then copied and pasted inner framed graphic 3 Using the magic wand, I selected the narrow border and filled with Layer>New fill layer, and filled with a matching darker color. I then applied the bevel, and Flattened the image. 4 I selected the wide border, filled as above, applied the bevel, and flattened the image. 5 I then added a 15 pixel outside border, filled with the same color I used on the narrow inner border , beveled this new border, then flattened image. I used the scalloped edge bevel for all of the borders. I flattened image between filling and beveling each border to make it easier to select the borders. I then resized the wallpaper back to 1280X1024  |
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If
you have any questions or suggestions, click on the email button
below to contact me. |
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These tutorials are all my own creations. |
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