This tutorial was written on April 29, 2003. It is copyrighted to me, Teri Henrikson, İGraphicButterfly 2003. This tutorial may not be reproduced, included in any collection, or sent in any e-mail format without my permission. You may contact me here.

The picture I used for this tutorial is from Patti Wavinak of Moon's Designs. Thank you Patti for letting me use this graphic.

This tutorial was written in PSP7 but I am sure can be done in other versions.

What you will need: JASC's PSP (30 day free trial)- You can get it HERE
Visual Manipulation or VISMAN (Natural) - You can get it HERE.Download into your plug-in folder.
A graphic of your choice.

Step 1:
Open your graphic in PSP and duplicate by either going to windows/duplicate or using control+D on your keyboard. Minimize your original as you may decide to use it later in this tutorial.

Step 2:
Using your eyedropper, pick a color from your graphic for the foreground, set background to white, #FFFFFF.

Step 3:
Go to image/add border. With symmetric checked add a border of 10 pixels. Using your magic wand, RGB mode, tolerance=0 feather=0, select your border. Go to effects, plug-ins and locate your VM Natural plug-in. Click on the Splash! effect. Use the settings:
X and Y at 125, Frequency, Ray length 1 and Ray length 2 all at 35.

**The object is to pull the rays out to the edge of the graphic. You may have to adjust the ray lengths to accomplish this. The x and y factors center the splash. I used 35 for some lengths and 50 for some others. This is entirely up to you. When you are happy with it, note it, and click ok. Do not deselect just yet.

Step 4:
Go to Selections/invert. Then to Effects/3D effects/Cutout and apply the following:

  • vertical=4
  • horizontal=4
  • opacity=100
  • blur=20
  • shadow color=black (#000000)

Repeat the cutout using minus 4 in vertical and horizontal offsets.

Step 5:
Go to selections/invert again and then Effects/3d Effects/Outer Bevel with these settings:

  • shape=triangle
  • width=8
  • smoothness=0
  • depth=20
  • ambience=0
  • shininess=20
  • angle=315
  • intensity=50
  • elevation=30

***** As for the color, you can leave it at white (the default setting) or change it to the color you picked from the original graphic you are using. I chose a color from the trunks of tree at the bottom for one picture and one from the color of the rocks at the top for another. I'll give you another option at the end of this tutorial. Deselect by going to Selections, Select none.

Step 6:
Go to images/add border of 20 (with white as bg color still). Select the border and repeat steps 3, 4, and 5, using the same settings you had before.

Step 7:
Go to images/add border of 10 and repeat steps 3-5.

Basically this is it, if you are happy with it save it as .jpg or .gif and enjoy!!
I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial, as much as I did creating it for you.

For an alternative to the borders, I used the original photograph as a pattern and flood filled the white borders with it. Used the splash with the rays, etc. at 35. The cutouts were the same, but in the outer bevel I went back to white for the color. You might like to try this on yours, too. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial!!

As stated before, this tutorial and my creations are copyrighted to me İGraphicButterfly 2003. Any use, without my permission, is forbidden.