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Quick and Easy Stationery
Using the Magic Wand and Clip Art
This can also be adapted for border style web backgrounds.
Version 6
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First, copy this image to the clipboard by right clicking and clicking again on copy. |
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Next, open Photo Impact. Click on edit,
and then paste - as a new image. Your image is now opened and ready
to edit.
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On the lower right hand of your screen,
you will see four icons. Click on 256, and then on RGB true color
in the popup menu. This will open a duplicate image, only in full color.
Note: If you are working in 256 mode, many of your functions in Photo Impact will be grayed out, so it is a good idea to always check this. |
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I have already
resized this image for you, but most of the time you will need to
do this yourself. Click on the transform tool, and press and hold
the shift key while clicking and dragging the bottom right corner square
in and up. Make sure your ending graphic is less than 250 pixels
wide. If you are making a background border for a web page, it should
be even less--no more than 200 pixels wide. You can tell how large your
graphic is at any point by looking at the title bar. Here, the title bar
is outlined in black. It's a good idea to resize your window either full
size or slightly larger than the graphic you're working with so that you
can easily grab the corner square. In this example, you can see that my
window is larger than the graphic area.
You can resize your window as you would with any windows window: hold your mouse over a side or corner and click and drag it to the desired size. |
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Now click on the selection tool, and hold down on the little arrow in the corner of the box until a box opens with the other selection tools. Click on the magic wand tool. |
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Here are the mode and similarity settings for your wand. On mode, click on the + sign, and for similarity, set the number on 40. It should be no less than 33, which is the default setting. |
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Click in the white
area surrounding this graphic. This will select the white area. Click
again between the arm and leg of the little girl where there is another
white area. Also click on the white area inside the bow. If the + sign
is not selected, this will make a new selection, so be sure it is indented.
Right click and click again on invert to select only the graphic.
Note: This will only work if your image is already merged. If you have an object floating on top of your workspace, and are trying to select the white area of it, it will not work. To fix this, right click on the image and click again on merge all. |
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Right click on your selected image, and
click again on convert to object. (At this point, if you wish, you
can click on your object and drag it to the easy palette. If the
easy palette is not open, you can open it by clicking on this button. 
When you drag your object to the easy palette, a box will open allowing you to name your new object.) |
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Press the space
bar to select the background image. The selection marquee will disappear.
Click on the transform tool , and click and drag the square in the middle
of the right side farther to the right. This will give you some extra
room to add a divider bar later.
Note!! Depending on your settings, you may see a duplicate of your image when you begin to resize the base image. This is NOT important! Ignore it. When you continue to the next step, this duplicate will be covered up. |
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Press the control key and F at the same
time to open the fill dialog box.
Right click on the color box and click again
on eyedropper. A new box will open. Choose a color in the image
that you think compliments the image by clicking on the desired color.
I have chosen a light blue.
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Now you can adjust the background color using the color toolbox on the right side of your screen. Clicking on the + or - sign beside any color will take away from or add to the amount of that color in the selected part of the image. You should still have the background selected. I chose to add a little blue. |
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Now, with the background still selected, go to the menu bar and click on effect. This popup menu will appear. Click on creative, then painting. |
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A box will open.
On the left side of the box will be some numbered thumbnails. Click
on # 44. In the right side of the box, you will see these settings.
Make sure yours match.
Put a check mark in the box next to Tile. I encourage you to experiment with different thumbnails and settings here. You can use this method to produce interesting backgrounds too. Test different effects by clicking on the "try" button. |
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Your image will now look something like this. |
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At this point, I like to check my seams. An easy way to do this is to click on web in the menu bar, then shift image. A box will open with your background showing. When you point your mouse on it, the cursor will turn into a hand indicating that you can move it around. Click and hold the mouse button while moving the image up or down. Make sure you can't see a seam. (you probably won't, but I like to make sure.) When you are sure there is no seam, or line where you can tell the images met, click cancel. With this particular painting effect, there will be a line on the side. For our purposes, that does not matter, so ignore it. For some, this painting effect is not seamless even though tile is checked. If this happens to you, try some of the other painting effects, or fill the background with a tile you make yourself. See this tutorial for help with making background tiles. |
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Now click on the shape tool marked with a black arrow here. Make sure your shape is rectangle. Set the color to blue by clicking on the color box. I like to use a darker color than is in my background for contrast. You can use either the windows color picker or the ulead color picker. I find the windows color picker is easiest to use. For mode, (2nd black arrow,) set it on 3D custom. |
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Now click and drag on the image area, and
draw a long thin rectangle. Click on the transform tool (illustrated above)
and drag the middle top square up so that it extends up and below the image
window. You will need to maximize your image window before doing
this. This will keep you from having to crop your image later.
If you wish, make another bar by right clicking on your bar and then clicking
on duplicate. Line both bars along the right side.
Right click and then click on merge all.
(At this point, you may save your image if you wish and use the stationery wizard to make it into stationery. However, there are several benefits to continuing and using a strip.) |
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Click on file, new and then in the box that
opens as a result, click on "active image" This will cause the dimensions
of your active image to be displayed. (first arrow) Now
erase the number in the width box, (marked with an arrow here), and type
in 1152. Change the height to the height of your image.
Click on ok to close the box. Right click on the white area of the new
image, and click again on paste.
This will line up your image just right along the left side, and will be perfectly centered. |
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At this point, I often add a drop shadow
to the image. Right click on your selected image, and click again
on shadow. Click in the Check box to add a shadow, and click
on ok.
Even with the Y-offset set at zero, there will be a small gap in the shadow. I use the split shadow option to fix this. Click on image in the menu bar at the top of your screen, and then split shadow. |
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This allows you to re-size the shadow with
the transformer tool as we did with the divider bar, so that it is taller
than the real image. Click on the shadow to select it,
click on the transformer tool, and then drag the square in the center of the top up, and drag the square in the center of the bottom down. No more gap! |
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Now press the space bar to select the white
area under your image. Press control and F key at the same time to open
the fill dialog box. Again, just like above, use the eydropper tool
to select the same color in the background of your clip art. Or use what
you learned in Step one: the Strip
to make a tile and fill your strip.
Click on OK. Your strip is almost ready. Right click and merge all.
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Now we need to optimize
or shrink the size so that your friends won't have to wait forever
when downloading their mail. I like to keep the size under 60 kbs
if at all possible.
Now click on web in the menu bar and click on Image optimizer. |
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This will open another box. In this box,
you will see your image shown in two boxes. The one on the left is
the uncompressed version, and the one on the right is the compressed version.
Click the button marked 1:1 to see your image full size. Make sure you have jpg selected. Use the slider to adjust the level of compression, while noticing the differences the compession level makes in your image. Slide it far enough back to the left until you begin to see a difference, and then back up just enough so that you see no difference. This will give you the most compresed image possible while your end product is still attractive. Be aware, that if you fill your background strip with a texture, the more textured it is, the higher the size of the end product. While textured backgrounds can be very attractive, they are also quite costly to the size, and should especially avoided in web backgrounds. I most often save my images at 75 percent for the softer colors, and between 80 and 90 percent for the holiday colors. |
| Kathy Olsen's Outlook Express Tutorials | Rather than do a tutorial of my own on the stationery wizard, I'll leave you in the capable hands of another stationery creator. Kathy has wonderful tutorials on the wizard, adding background sound, and adding a scrolling script to your stationery. |
Click here to visit my main site, and see my stationery and backgrounds.
E-Mail
me
I would appreciate seeing your results,
and how you hearing how you liked this tutorial. If you have any
questions, feel free to write and ask them.
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