Gilded Elegance Frame

Created January 14, 2002 © Copyright Moon's Designs
Property of Moon's Designs
This is my own creation, any similarities to any other tutorial on the Internet are unintentional.
Please do not copy or place this tutorial or any graphics to any other place without written permission directly from me. Thank you

 

After doing the Gilded Tile Frame, a friend and fellow PSPer, Linda Whitman, sent me a very elegant frame that she designed using my Silver Preset, Inner Bevel and the VM Instant Tile Filter. I immediately wrote her and suggested she write a tutorial on her frame. She explained she doesn't have a website and graciously sent me her instructions on how she made the frame, granting me permission to use her instructions to write this tutorial. Thank you so much Linda!

This tutorial does not use borders in making the frame, and is an excellent one to store in your PSP frames folder to use over and over again. I will show you how to save the frame so you can use it again and again with your graphics. We use two of my more favorite filters, VM's Instant Tile and Flaming Pear's Silver Filter found in their Designer Sextet Series. I have also used quite a few screenshots in this tutorial. I have resized and optimized them for easier download.

One thing I always do when downloading filters is setup a separate folder in my Plugins Folder and name it what the filter is -- i.e. Sextet; VM, etc. Then I unzip the filter into that folder. It makes it much easier to navigate and helps keep you a bit more organized.

This tutorial is written in and for PSP Version 7.04 and assumes you have a working knowledge of PSP and filters at an intermediate level. I am sure this can easily be done in Version 6 with a few adjustments in paths but I have only used Version 7 so I can't make promises *S*

You will need:

JASC's PSP (30 day free trial)- You can get it HERE
Flaming Pear's Designer Sextet Series ~~ You can get the trial download HERE
VisMan ~~ You can get it HERE
**unzip into your folder you have set up in your plugins folder.
My Silver Preset ~~ You can get it HERE
**unzip into your Silver Presets folder in your Sextet Folder
My Inner Bevel Preset ~~ You can download it HERE
**unzip into your PSP Presets Folder
My Gold Gradient ~~ You can download it HERE
A graphic ~~ I used Musicians In Paradise by Jonathan Earl Bowser. Mr. Bowser has graciously allowed me to use his artwork in my tutorials. Please view his wonderful art HERE. If you would like to use this graphic please right click and save to your hard drive.

Remember to save your work often!

Step 1:
Open a new image 350x350, 16 million colors, transparent background. Set your foreground color to the MD-Gold gradient that you just unzipped.

Step 2:
Go to Selections-->Select All (Ctrl+A). Selections-->Modify-->Contract Enter 30. Selections-->Invert and floodfill with your gold gradient.

Step 3:
Go to Effects-->Plugins-->Flaming Pear-->Silver. To get to the md-gold preset that I made, click on the red arrow and navigate to your Silver Presets Folder and open the MD-gold preset.
Press OK. Keep selected.

Step 4:
Go to Effects-->Plugins-->VMTools-->Instant Tile and apply the default settings. Deselect.

Step 5:
We are now going to save this as a frame. You will understand why we are doing this later in this tutorial. Go to File-->Save As. Navigate to where you have your frames stored and save it whatever name you like with a pfr extension. I named my md-frame1.pfr. It is important to add the pfr extension so PSP will know that it is a frame file.

Step 6:
Duplicate your frame (Shift+D). We will be doing all of our work on this frame and saving it in PSP for now. Linda saved all of hers in pfr format, but I personally prefer psp format until later. Of course, you may save it as you desire. Go to Layers-->Duplicate. Go to Images-->Rotate. Rotate your copy of layer1 45 degrees to the right, making sure that all layers is unchecked.

Step 7:
Go to Images-->Resize and resize your layer by 85%. Make sure resize all layers is UNchecked.

Go to Effects-->Sharpen-->Sharpen. Resize your layer by 85% one more time and sharpen. Save.

Step 8:
Go to Layers-->Merge-->Merge Visible. Go to Selections-->Select All (Ctrl+A). Selections-->Float (Ctrl+F). Effects-->Plugins-->VMTools-->Instant Tile and apply the default settings. Keep selected. Pick up your Magic Wand (tolerance and feather set at 0) and select all those lines you just created.

Effects-->Plugins-->Flaming Pear-->Silver and apply the MD-gold preset. Deselect and save.

Go to Effects-->3D-->Inner Bevel and apply the md-frame1 preset. Go to Effects-->Sharpen-->Unsharp Mask using these settings. Radius 3.96; Strength 22; Clipping 2. Thank you Linda for showing me this as I very seldom use the Unsharp Mask. Save.

Step 9:
Using your Magic Wand select the four transparent corners. Hold down your shift key to select each corner.

Flood fill each corner with your gold gradient. Apply your MD-gold Silver Filter.

Apply your VM Tools Instant Tile. Deselect and save.

Step 10:
Remember I told you we would be using the first frame you made? We're going to use it now. Go to Images-->Picture Frame.

Scroll to what you saved your first frame as and click ok. Mark frame outside of image and press Finish.

You now should have your completed gilded elegant frame that looks like this.

Step 11:
Go to Layers-->Merge-->Merge Visible. Go to Files-->Save As. Navigate to where you have your frames saved and save your frame with the .pfr extension. I named mine md-gilded_elegance.pfr.

Step 12:
Open the graphic that you want to use. Go to Images-->Picture Frame and apply your frame that you just made. You can experiment and either choose the frame inside the image or frame outside the image. You can also press Undo if you don't like the one you chose *grin*. After you apply your frame, go to Effects-->Sharpen-->Sharpen. Go to Layers-->Merge-->Merge Flatten to save as a .jpg. Remember if you are doing this for a group lesson you will want to resize your finished creation.

Here are two more that I did using different style and size graphics.