This tutorial is my own creation. Any resemblence to another is purely coincidental.
Please do not pull it apart and claim it as your own.
Do not translate it or place it on another website without my written permission.
You are more than welcome to use my tutorials in a group setting. Please link to this page only.



Tools needed to complete this tutorial:

Corel XI

Simple Filters

The dingfont I used can be downloaded from HERE

A graphic of your choice.

The graphic used for this tutorial is used as per the TOU for Ursula Vernon of Metal & Magic.


Ok, if you have everything you need, let’s begin.

  1. Open your graphic of choice and resize to a height of no more than 200 pixels. (Graphics that are a lot wider than longer work best)

  2. Using your eye dropper selection a complimenting foreground and background colour from your graphic.
    A light and dark shade of the same colour will work best. Don’t worry if the dark colour is on the outside of the graphic, we still follow through as instructed.

  3. Image, add border, and add a 2 pixel border using the darkest colour that you chose.

  4. Image, add border and add a 2 pixel border with your second colour.

  5. Repeat the above two steps two more times.

  6. Selections, select all.

  7. Selections, modify, contract by 12.

  8. Selections, invert.

  9. Effects, 3D Effects, Inner bevel and use the following settings:-

    • Pie Bevel
    • Width:      8
    • Smoothness:     2
    • Depth:     1
    • Ambience:     0
    • Shininess:     50
    • Color:     White
    • Angle:     315
    • Intensity:     43
    • Elevation:     30

  10. Effects, 3D Effects, drop shadow and use the following settings:-

    • Vertical:     2
    • Horizontal:     5
    • Opacity:     45
    • Blur:     10
    • Color:     Black

  11. Repeat the drop shadow but change the vertical & horizontal to (minus)Numbers.

  12. Selections, select none.

  13. Repeat steps 4 to 12

  14. Using your selection tool set to rectangle, draw a rectangle around the graphic inside the framing.

  15. Edit copy. Selections, select none.

  16. Image, add border and add a 25 pixel white border.

  17. Select the border with your magic wand.

  18. Edit, paste into selection.

  19. Deselect.

  20. Repeat steps 4 to 13

  21. Resize to make the height betwen 350 and 380 pixels.

  22. Sharpen if necessary.

  23. Take a note of your width and length.

  24. Open a new transparent image with the following settings:

    • Width:     Width of your graphic after framing plus 60.
    • Height:     Height of your graphic after framing plus 200

  25. Go back to our framed image, edit, copy. Minimize for now, we will be using this graphic a little later.

  26. Back to our new transparent image, edit, paste as new layer. It should center it perfectly for you.

  27. With your selection tool still set to rectangle, draw a line around the first part of the frame, as shown here.

  28. Edit, copy. Selections, select none.

  29. Edit, paste as new layer and with your mover tool, move this selection to the very top of our framed image.

  30. Duplicate this layer.

  31. Image, resize and resize by 85%, making sure all layers is Unchecked.

  32. Move this to the top as shown in the main graphic at the top.

  33. Move this layer down one in your layer palette so that the copy of raster 3 is just under the raster 3 layer.

  34. Close all layers except the top two.

  35. Making sure that one of the top two layers is the active layers, merge visible.

  36. Open all layers now.

  37. Duplicate the merged layer, image, flip.

  38. It should line up perfectly, but if not, just use your mover tool to move it into place.

  39. Making sure your top layer is the active layer, add a new raster layer for your watermark.

  40. Merge all visible.

  41. With your mover tool, move the graphic up towards the top of the transparent image.

  42. Click on your text tool and look for Dizzinz Buttons. Set your size to 46, vector checked.

    **NOTE: I found I had to play a little with the sizing of my text for each graphic I used in my examples. Text size ranged from 40 to 52.

  43. Set your foreground colour to the darker of the two colours you used earlier in your frame.

  44. Set your background to pattern and using the drop down menu, select the framed image we’ve made sizing set to 120, angle to 0. It should be named image 2. Because we have two images open.

  45. Type the letter e, or chose one of your liking.

  46. Move this image so that it’s just touching the bottom of your framed image.

  47. Convert to raster layer.

  48. Effects, 3D Effects, inner bevel and use the same settings as before.

  49. Add a new layer if you would like to add some text to the button at the bottom of the frame.

  50. I used the same colours as in the frame for my text.

  51. I added the same inner bevel that we used throughout the tutorial and added the same drop shadow but changed the blur to 5.

  52. Merge visible.

  53. Ctrl + C and then Ctrl + V to get rid of the unwanted transparency around the graphic.

  54. Merge all visible.

  55. Files, Export, GIF optimizer and save as your header.

  56. You can now close this graphic off.

    BACKGROUND

  57. Open the copy of the framed graphic that we minimized earlier.

  58. Effects, Plugins, Simple, 4 Way Average.

  59. Effects, Image Effects, Seamless tiling and use the following settings:-

    • Corner Checked
    • Bidirectional Checked
    • Horizontal offset:     0
    • Vertical offset:      44
    • Transition:     15%
    • Curved checked.

  60. Right click in your layer palette and promote background to layer.

  61. Drop the opacity to around the 50% mark.

  62. Merge all, flatten.

    You can now put it all together in Letter Creator now.


               



    © An Aushorty Creation – September 2004 - Rewritten February 2008