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Make your own border templates in (PSP)This tutorial is for Paintshop Pro but I believe the principles can be applied to Photoshop, Illustrator or CorelDraw as well. I am using PSP X. It's very easy to make your own templates using the vector drawing tools in PSP. Click on the Preset Shape icon on your tool palette and choose the Ellipse preset. Then take a quick look at the preset menu that will open on the top left. We are going to draw a perfect circle, so we select the circle (not the ellipse) from the Mode menu.
Now open a new file, 12 inches (3600px) wide and 6 inches (1800px) tall. Draw a horizontal guide by dragging from your top ruler to the 2" mark with your mouse. If you have your grid turned on, you can specify the units to be set for 150px, since the center of the shape snaps to the grid. (You can change the properties for the grid by going View/Change Grid, Guide & Snap Properties). Have your fill set to a solid black or gray, line set to null. Just draw a circle, we can define it in the next step. Change the units of the circle as follows: |
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| That should change the circle into a perfect 1 inch circle, flush with the left side, the center of it flush at the 2" guide. Now change to edit mode by selecting the white arrow next to the ellipse in the preset menu. Select your circle and make a copy of it by pressing Ctrl+C and paste an exact copy by pressing Ctrl+G. (This command is similar to Ctrl+E, but this is for pasting in vector images. You will see an outline of the circle attached to your cursor. Move it and watch the ruler so that you are lining the center of the circle up exactly with the ruler at 3" horizontally (top ruler) and 2" from the top (left ruler) right ON the guide. As soon as you release the mouse button, the circle stays put. You can always pick it up again and reposition it. Just make sure you have the white arrow (edit mode) selected when you do. Your cursor will turn into a 4 arrowed cursor so you know you can move it. Continue to copy and paste the circles until you have them all the way across, 6 circles in all. (See below) | |
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| Now from the preset fly-out menu from the tool palette, choose the rectangular preset shape tool. At the top bar, choose the rectangle tool (not the square). Draw a 12X2" rectangle (using the same fill settings as the circle) from the 0" mark on the left side all the way to the right side. See below: | |
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| Also, double-check your size. You can
resize the rectangle by dragging it by the handles (nodes) and watching
the placement of the rectangle in the menu at the top:
We're almost done. You may want to zoom in and make sure everything is lined up perfectly. Once you are satisfied with the placement of your circles and rectangle, all you have to do is right click on the vector layer in your layers palette, and choose "Convert to raster."
To use the template: Copy and paste the background paper as a new layer for your layout. Now copy and paste the template as a new layer above it. (Ctrl+L). Select the border shape with your magic wand, invert selection. Then select the layer of the paper you want to use for the border and hit delete. That should leave you with a border in this shape. Then delete the layer with your template on it. You can also make a nice 10px border by applying the chisel effect to it. Go Effects/3D effects/Chisel. Select 10 for the size, solid and hit OK. That will give it a nice finish. You can also add a drop shadow to that. |
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If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to write me at oilnwine@gmail.com |
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Turn on
your guides by going to View/Guides and clicking on "Guides" once. You can
also turn your grid on if you want. I like to have it on and make sure I
have the Snap to Grid option selected for placing items precisely where I
want them. You need to have your ruler turned on also, by the way, and
have it set to inches. (You can specify your how you want your ruler set
up in File/Preferences/General Program Preferences. Just remember, that at
300dpi, 300 pixels are one inch. For scrapbooking, I prefer to set my
units to inches since I am working in a 12X12 inch format.
After
you've converted it into a raster layer, go back to your image and select
it. Copy it by pressing Ctrl+C and pasting it as a new image (Ctrl+V). Now
you can export it as a .PNG file by going File/Export as PNG Optimizer.
Save it at 16.7 Million colors (24bit) and hit OK. Now you hae a border
you can use as a template to make borders for your layouts.