Ruffles and stitches

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This tutorial was written with the permission of Nanette, whose idea it was, and who wrote the PSP tutorial.

Creating a ruffled, stitched edge This tutorial will require a few preparatory steps. You will need to install the texturizer filter which Mary Lou has allowed me to put on my site for your benefit. Click here to download it. Inside the zip is a read me file. Follow the directions to set up Pi to use filters if you have not already done so. You will also need this mask. Click here to download. (You will need to change it to gray scale to add it to your mask library. If you don't know how to add masks to your mask library, please click here for directions.

	1. Choose a piece of clip art, a piece of your own work, or an object to use in this piece. If you like, you may use these wild roses I painted with PI for this tutorial. Click the picture to download the zip. (22.5 kb) These may be used in your own work, but may not be put on your web site or uploaded to a news group as is. If you use a piece of clip art, use the magic wand to make it into an object as explained in this tutorial.
	2. Open the piece in its own canvas. Look at the four icons in the bottom right hand of the screen. You should see a color bar of red, green and blue there. If you see anything else, you are not working in 24 bit mode. It is a good idea to always check here to make sure. If you see anything besides the color bar, click it and in the popup menu click on "24 bit true color".
	3. Now click the ruler icon, and click again on ruler. At the top part of the ruler, look to see if the piece you will be using is less than 250 pixels wide. The wild roses are more than 250 pixels wide, so they must be re-sized. Click on the transformer tool. Make sure you have the first option in the attribute toolbar active, which is the resize option. This will cause the image to be surrounded by a box with squares. These squares are the handles you grab to re-size an object. Left mouse click on the one in the lower right hand side while at the same time, holding down the shift key. Drag the square over to the left so that the line is before the 250 pixel mark on the ruler.
	4. Now take a good look at your image. Did the resizing make your image fuzzy? If so, click the F7 button and click on options. Beside level, erase -1 and write in 1. Click the OK button.
	5. Switch to the eyedropper tool. Choose a light color in your image and a dark color. Right click on one and left click on the other. This will set your foreground and background colors to your chosen colors
	6. Open up a new image (CTRL N) and set the dimensions to 300 X 300 pixels. Press CTRL D to duplicate this image.
	7. Click on the bucket fill tool, and change the color to the foreground color. To do this, right click on the color box in the attribute tool bar. Choose foreground color. Click on the canvas to fill it with the foreground color. Click on the title bar of your other canvas, and change the color to the background color. Click on that canvas to fill it with the background color. 8. These two colors will make up the colors in your ruffles, so look at them side by side. One of them should be a darker color than the other. You may want to use the brightness control to adjust the brightness of one or both of the canvases. I did.
	9. Now click effect in the menu bar and then texture, hover your mouse over the arrow, to make the word texturizer pop out, and click on texturizer. Click on the down arrow beside texture, and click on canvas. Change the relief to 1, and the light direction to "top right". Click ok. Make the other canvas active by clicking on its title bar and repeat the last step.
	10. In your easy palette, click on the box icon that represents your object libraries. Click the plus icon beside Mask library to open it. Click on all. Scroll through all the choices until you get to the mask you added for this tutorial. It will probably be the last one. Double click on the mask to apply it to your active canvas.
	11. Use the transformer tool to re-size the mask selection so that it just lines up with the outside of the canvas. Make sure the selection lines on all four side are just right. If necessary, use the zoom tool to zoom in, and check all sides to see that there is no edge between the selection lines and the edge.
	12. When the dotted lines are as close to the edges as possible, hit the delete key. Right click, invert, and right click again and convert to object. Slide your new object over to check the edges to see if you have a line. I did.
	13. Here's how to get rid of it. If you have no line, skip this step. Click on the paint tool, and set it to brush with black as the color. With your new object still selected, click on the first icon in the lower right hand of the screen that looks like a mask. This will turn the screen a red color, but leave your object its original color. Carefully paint out the line on the edges. Remember to check all the edges. Click again on the mask icon to turn off the mask.
	14. Right click on your canvas, and click on shadow. Set the options as you see them here: Change the color of the shadow to white. (right click in the color box, and click on white.) Change X-offset to 2, and the Y-offset to 0. Change transparency and soft edge to 0.
	15. Right click and click on split shadow. In your easy palette, click on layer manager. You will see your scalloped edge, and your white shadow. Hold down control and click on the white shadow so that both are selected. Right click and click again on "combine as a single object".
	16. Right click again and click on shadow. This time change the color to black. Set the X-offset to 6, and the Y-offset to 0. Set the transparency to 40 and the soft edge to 4.
	Go back to the other canvas and repeat steps 10-16 on this canvas.
	17. Open a new canvas with dimensions of 1152 X 300 pixels. Fill the canvas with your background color. Repeat step 9 on this new canvas to add texture to your canvas.
	18. Go back to the canvas with the image you chose to decorate your piece, and copy it to the clipboard. (Ctrl C) Make your new canvas active, and paste the object in. (Ctrl v)
	19. Starting with the ruffle the same color as your background color, Copy and paste that to your new canvas. Arrange it so there is a little space between your image and the ruffle. Click on the pick tool, and in the attribute tool bar, click the align top button.
	20. Go back to the canvas with the second ruffle, and copy and paste it to your new canvas. Drag it to the right of the first ruffle, and use the arrow keys to line it up just right. Again, click the "align top" button. Click the "send to back" button. Hold down CTRL while clicking on the first ruffle to select both ruffles. Right click and click on duplicate. Arrange those two ruffles to the right of the first ones, and arrange them with the align top and send to back buttons. Add as many ruffles as you like, but remember, the more you add, the wider your margins will have to be when you make it into stationery, and most people do not like to open there e-mail up fullscreen.
	21. When you are done adding your ruffles, and have them arranged correctly, right click and merge all.
	22. Click on web, shift image, and do a vertical offset of 150 or half of the height of your image. Click ok. Look at the edges to make sure your seam matches. If it doesn't, click on the selection tool, and draw a rectangle on one of the other ruffle points. Click on Selections, and make sure preserve base image is selecte. Right click convert to object. Use the up or down arrow key to move it to cover your seam. Push the space bar to see your image with out the dotted lines. Redo if it doesn't match. Keep moving it and testing until it lines up correctly. When you are satisfied, right click and merge all.
	23. Click on web/ shift image again, and enter a vertical offset of 150 again to put your image back the way it was.
	24. Don't forget to use the image optimizer on your finished strip.