The following
tutorial is written using PSP8 but should be easily
adaptable for any version. You will need a tube of your
choice and the following plugins:
Open your tube in
PSP. Duplicate the window and close the original.
Resize if necessary. We are creating side border
stationery and I find that a graphic that is no wider
than 300 pixels will give you plenty of writing space on
the finished product.
Go to Layers/Add New
Raster Layer. Then Layers/Arrange/Move to Bottom.
Choose a complimentary color from your graphic and fill
this bottom layer with that color. Reactivate the top
tube layer and add a drop shadow if desired.
Go to Image/Canvas
Size and change your canvas size to 1024 wide x the
height of your graphic, with placement of the graphic to
the far left.
Make sure the bottom
colored layer is active and, using the Simple plugin,
choose Diamonds. Select the same plugin again and use
the 4Way Average filter. Open the Xero plugin, choose
the Fritillary filter and set at the following:
Granularity = 5
Agression = 30
Tesselation = 10
Variation = 10
Go to Layers/Add New
Raster Layer. Move to the bottom as before and fill
with another color of your choice. In the sample I am
using a slightly darker shade of the same color used to
fill the 2nd layer. For the purposes of this
tutorial I am adding a fine canvas texture to this
bottom layer using Filters Unlimited/Paper Textures.
You can leave it plain or add any texture or pattern
that suits your fancy.
Add your watermark,
if you use one, and go to Layers/Merge All(flatten). To
save the finished graphic go to File/Export/JPEG
Optimizer. Set the compression value to reduce the size
of the file. In the above example I’ve used a setting
of 25 but yours may vary. Name the file and save it to
your computer for later assembly in Letter Creator.
I hope you have
enjoyed this tutorial. If you have any questions or
comments or would like to share your finished stationery
with me, please feel free to contact me at
tysmodesigns@gmail.com
at any time.
With the exception
of the original graphic used in creating this tutorial,
the text and sample graphics used in this tutorial is
the sole property of TysmoDesigns and any similarities
to any other tutorials is purely coincidental.
