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Holiday Border Background
Software Used: Paint Shop Pro 6 (or later), Simple Filters

For this tutorial you'll need to download and install the free Simple Filters since Paint Shop Pro does not include an offset filter. If you already have Photoshop, you can use the Photoshop's offset filter if you've configured Paint Shop Pro to use Photoshop's plug-in filters. This tutorial should work with Paint Shop Pro version 6 and later. (Continued below...)

1.) Open a New Image: 100 x 1100 pixels @72 ppi, White background, 16.7 million colors.

2.) In the Layer Palette, click the new layer button.
Adding a new layer

Name this layer Candy Canes.
Naming the New Layer

3.) In the view menu select Normal Viewing (1:1) to view the image actual size. The entire image may not fit on your screen, so you'll need to use the scroll bar to move it back and forth as you work. My screen shots are cropped to a smaller size in this tutorial in order to fit them in the page.

4.) Select the Picture Tube tool and select Candy Canes as the Tube. Set the Scale to about 40, and the selection mode to Incremental.
Picture Tube options

5.) Randomly click to place candy canes in the image, being careful not to place one on the edge of the image where it gets cut off. The candy canes rotate as they come out of the tube in such a way that you'll want to click back and forth all over the entire image rather than starting at one end and working toward the other end. This will make more sense as you start clicking. If you find you don't like how it's turning out you can always go to Edit -> Clear, to clear the layer and start over.

6.) When you get the image evenly filled with candy canes, go to Image -> Plug-in Filters -> Simple -> Half-wrap if you're using the Simple Filters. If you're using Photoshop's filters, go to Go to Image -> Plug-in Filters -> Other -> Offset and set the horizontal and vertical values to 50 percent.

7.) You should see some white areas through the center. Fill these areas in with more candy canes.

8.) Now set the tube options to a scale of 70 and place some larger candy canes in the image. Again, remember to stay away from the edges.

9.) It's helpful to open another image so that when the candy canes turn upside-down in the rotation, you can click through them in a scrap image until you get back to the right-side-up candy canes.

10.) Once the image is filled in with larger candy canes, you can use the offset or half-wrap filter again, and fill down the center with more larger candy canes.

11.) Next, in the layers palette, set the opacity slider for he candy cane layer to 30.

12.) Right click on candy canes in the layer manager and choose New Adjustment Layer -> Brightness/Contrast. Set the Brightness to about 30.

13.) Make another new layer in your image and name this one Holly.

14.) Select the Picture Tube tool and set the tube to Holly and the scale to 60.

15.) Go to the far left edge and click once in the vertical center, approximately 75 pixels from the left edge. Then click above and below and along the left edge to fill in with holly.

16.) Use the offset or half-wrap filter again.

17.) Create another new layer and name it More Holly.

18.) Click two or three times directly over the center seam to hide it with more holly. If you need to you can use the move tool to move the entire layer into a better position to conceal the seam.

19.) Once you have the seam hidden, hide all the layers except Holly and More Holly by clicking the eyeglasses in the layer palette.

20.) Right click on one of those two layers and choose Merge -> Merge Visible. Double click the layer name to rename it from "merged" back to "Holly". Make all layers visible again.

21.) Use the offset or half-wrap filter again.

22.) If you scroll to the far right of the image, you'll probably see some leftover bits of holly from where we hid the seam. Make sure you are in the Holly layer, select the rectangle selection tool, and select the leftover bits of holly, then hit the delete key.

23.) Save to the format of your choice and you have a festive holiday bordered background for your Web page.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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