This tutorial is my own creation. Any resemblance to another is purely co-incidental. Please do not pull it apart and claim it as your own. Do not copy, translate or place on another site without my written permission. You are more than welcome to use this tutorial in a group setting, but please link to this page only.

Tools needed to complete this tutorial:

Paint Shop Pro V8

Graphic of your choice.

The graphic used in this tutorial is used per TOU of the very talented Stephanie Shimerdla.

Cat008 mask

If you have everything you need, lets begin.

1. Open your graphic and resize if necessary.

2. Windows, duplicate and close the duplicated copy for now.

3. In the layer palette, right click and promote background layer.

4. Layers, Load/Save Mask, Load mask from disk and using the drop down menu find the Cat008 mask and make sure that Invert Transparency is Unchecked.

5. Layers, Merge, Merge group.

6. Effects, 3D Effects, Inner bevel and use the following settings:-
   • Pie Bevel
     
   • Width:      12
     
   • Smoothness:      0
     
   • Depth:      2
     
   • Ambience:      0
     
   • Shininess:      2
     
   • Color:      White
     
   • Angle:      315
     
   • Intensity:      60
     
   • Elevation:      25

7. Image, Canvas size and make the canvas 20 pixel wider and 20 pixels longer than the original with the centre arrow selected.

8. Using your magic wand, click inside the largest transparency section of the mask to select it.

   (The center of the mask)

   

9. You will notice double lines of marching ants in some places.

10. Right click on the minimized graphic, edit copy.

11. Right click on the blue top border of our masked image, edit, paste into selection.

12. Deselect.

13. Add a new raster layer and drag this to the bottom of the layer palette. Selections, select all.

14. Edit, paste into selection.

15. Effects, Edge Effects, Find Vertical.

16. Deselect.

17. Make sure the top layer is the active layer.

18. Effects, 3D Effects, Drop Shadow and use the following settings:-
    • Vertical:      0
      
    • Horizontal:      4
      
    • Opacity:      100
      
    • Blur:      15
      
    • Color:      Black
      
    • Shadow on new layer:      Unchecked

19. Highlight the bottom layer.

20. Add a new layer for your watermark.

21. Merge all flatten.

    BACKGROUND

22. Maximize the duplicated image.

23. Effects, Edge Effects, Find Vertical.

24. Effects, Image Effects, Seamless Tiling and use the following settings:-
    • Mirror checked.
      
    • Bidirectional checked.
      
    • Width:      50

25. Adjust, Hue & Satuation, colorize and play around to find a colour that will sit in well with the framed image.

26. Save as your background.

27. You can now put this all together in Letter Creator.

    
    © An Aushorty Creation – April 2006