AB Border Frames - New Series

[andrewb2012 Profile]

Here is a new series of borders/frames that sit on top of the original without altering its dimensions. These are very easy to make, so perhaps others could copy the effect structure and contribute similar (or much better) than these ones. I'm going to develop these further. The series is called 'Ab border frames' numbered 001-040. You will have to wait a few days for them to become live. You can easily adjust frame color by moving the 'Hue'slider. Please note that the 'Master Fade' slider was not my choice but a default setting - using it can create transparency and cause a few problems. I don't know how to get rid of it.

Examples:

Example - Ab border frames.jpg (315.55 KiB) Viewed 7009 times

[cherylboo Profile]

nice.

[eadams Profile]

These are wonderful borders, thank you! I added "Ab border frames" to the list of effects I want to be able to find again.

May I ask how you created these?

[andrewb2012 Profile]

Hi cherylboo and eadams,

Glad you like the border effects - hope they are useful to you. Thanks for your kind comments.

eadams, I am more than happy to show you how I created these borders. For the structure of these effects I suggest that click on 'Manual Edit' which can be found in the applied effect's thumbnail image in the effect history at the top of the SPE screen (by right clicking). This will reveal the effect diagram.

However, I really think you are talking about how I made the artwork for each effect.

Here's how:

I used Corel PaintShop Pro X6 and I've taken a few screen shots to show how I used the normal 'Distortion' effects within the program to create the border masks.

I've kept it simple, but within the series multiple distortions were applied as required. The screen shots just give you an insight and you would need to experiment with the concepts yourself - not necessarily within PaintShop Pro, as there are other programs that are capable too.

Screen Shots:

ScreenClip [7]-tile.jpg (719.34 KiB) Viewed 6926 times

Hope you find this understandable.

Cheers,

Andrew

[DBenterprises Profile]

Here are 50 very cool borders. Not sure if they can be legally used to make permanent border effects in SPE, but I don't see why not? You can find them available at several websites. Here is one
http://www.digitalcameraworld.com/2010/ ... photoshop/

[andrewb2012 Profile]

Hi DBenterprises,

Certainly the borders are superb, but I certainly won't use them in my contributed effects without first writing for specific permission from the company to use within Smart Photo Editor. In fact, I prefer to make my own border masks as I can know with absolute certainty that there will be NO copyright issues.

Regards,

Andrew

[DBenterprises Profile]

I hear ya!
I tried to track down the originator, but since these same borders are available at different sites, I don't know who they belong to.
Thanks for all your contributions Andrew.

[eadams Profile]

Thank you, Andrew, for explaining how you made the borders! Yes, as you suspected, I was asking how the artwork for the border was created. Thank you for the explanation! You have published so many beautiful textures and background images - did you create those with PaintShop Pro as well? I have heard about that program, but I have never tried it out.

I do click on "Manual Edit" to see how effects are made. I'm still trying to figure out how the nodes "Add Filter" and "Select by Color" (that you used in the border effects) work.

For creating external images to be included in effects (like borders or background images) what size and resolution do you recommend?

[andrewb2012 Profile]

Hi eadams,

The "Add Filter" allows you to change the black border to a color if you use an 'add' filter type (move through the filter types and you will see different results - however, if you select the 'add' filter type then it will only change black to the desired color).

The "Select by Color" requires you to match exactly the color set when using the 'Add Filter' node. Once you have done this it is only this solid color part that is superimposed on top of the original image, because in effect the selected color is the mask area. The added 'Hue & Saturation' node is simply to allow users to change the color as they desire, all it is doing is changing the hue information not the mask selection itself. If this was placed after the final merge, then using the sliders would alter the original image as well as the border colors.

I tend to use 3 x 2 (6 x 4) aspect ratio with the longest side set to 3500 pixels as I do not want any pixelation problems passed on in the effect. That equates to approximately 3500 x 2333 pixels.

I use many programs to create my textures including:


Adobe Photoshop Elements 11
Corel PaintShop Pro X6
Inkscape
FotoSketcher
Krita
SumoPaint Pro
Real World Paint

Plus a wide variety of plugins:

Filter Forge 4 Professional Edition (+ Stand alone application)
Topaz filters - almost all of them
Redfield plugins including Fractalius
To name but a few

I also simply photograph real textures (of all sorts) and put them through SPE using a variety of effects and also convert to B&W.

Some of my textures are done off the computer using paint, ink, water & colored oils, printing, torn paper, scanner images ... all sorts of things.

Often I make 1000 variations through batch processing and select a few for effects. Don't keep them all - I DUMP THEM.

My effects are often multi-layered effects, lets say 20 variations - then through batch processing I multiply these variations.

I have many textures that I keep for my own purposes and many more in the pipeline for effects.

I just like creating things - it is great FUN!

Regards,

Andrew

[eadams Profile]

Thank you so much for giving all these details about your workflow and revealing how you manage to create so many beautiful textures!

Andrew wrote: I tend to use 3 x 2 (6 x 4) aspect ratio with the longest side set to 3500 pixels as I do not want any pixelation problems passed on in the effect. That equates to approximately 3500 x 2333 pixels.

I have been using smaller images and do experience poor quality, so this guideline is very useful to me!

Is there a way to edit an existing effect (replace the texture with a better quality one) without having to create a new one? I tried to edit one of my local effects but ended up with two versions (the bad version and the corrected one), so I have been afraid to try to publish corrections to other effects. Indeed, I have been hesitant to publish any effects at all because I don't know how to delete them if I decide they are worthless.