This exercise is meant for those who have no experience in Photoshop whatsoever.
Before we start making our texture, you might want to use some materials for that which you can download from here:
We shall begin with setting the workspace in the following way so that if you are using CS2 you can see more or less the same layout as in my illustrations:
In the next step we are going to convert the wood textures, which you have downloaded, into patterns. This is very simple – open the texture file in Photoshop and do the following:
A small dialog will appear where you can specify the name for your pattern. Click OK.
Now let’s open a new document, where will be creating our Frame. Go to File >>> New.
Set the New File dialog box as follows:
After the new file is opened select Rectangular Marquee from the toolbox:
We shall use marquee to make a selection with which we will work further. So that we can place the selection nicely aligned we can enable grid:
To customize grid you can do the following:
Note that gridline set to appear every 32 pixels – it makes sense because 512 (the dimensions of our document) can be divided by 32.
Now we can use rectangular marquee to draw our selection in the document:
Fine dotted line, a.k.a. “marching ants” signifies selection.
Next we have to INVERT this selection by pressing ctrl shift I (for Invert):
You notice that now there are “marching ants” at the edge of the document as well, going all along the perimeter.
Next, with marquee tool still selected – right-click on the document and select “Fill” from the menu:
Fill dialog box will appear. Select Pattern for Use, click on the small pointer next to the custom pattern sample and you will find the patterns you have created earlier in the end of the pattern picker:
Click OK.
Now you will see your selection nicely filled with pattern and since we don’t need this selection any more, you can click ctrl D to deselect.
Let us have a look at the Layers Palette. Here we can see one layer with our “frame”. Double-click on the blue space of the layer:
This will open big Blending Options Dialog box:
Click on the words “Bevel &Emboss” and it will automatically apply the default options for this style and open it’s own dialog at the same time. You can play with the options or set them as on this illustration, then click OK:
Now if you wish you can even place some picture in this frame:
You can use Move tool (red check mark on the picture above) and simply drag and drop one image from it’s document to another document. New layer always appears on top of the layer active in the file where this new layer appears. We have to change this layer order by pressing ctrl [ (this will send the active layer below the layer under it):
We might want to resize the picture to fit it into the frame:
In order to be able to continue our work we need to apply transformation and exit transformation mode:
Now we can make a little more sophisticated frame.
This time we will start in the same way (except that you don’t need to define patterns again – they already exist in your pattern preset picker), but we will use elliptical Marquee (right-click on rectangular marquee tool to pick up elliptical marquee from the list) and again after drawing the selection we will have to invert it (ctrl shift I) :
Now we will see a different method of filling the selection :
It will open the same Fill dialog box which we have seen before.
After the selection is filled with pattern you may deselect (ctrl D) and double-click on the layer again to open Blending options dialog box. As before, click on the words Bevel & Emboss, and set the options, after which do not exit this dialog, but click on the word “Contour” instead:
Choose the contour you like from the contour picker:
In addition you might like to add Texture Bevel and Emboss – using the same pattern which you used for fill:
Click OK.
Now it’s time to save this file:
Your frame is ready for upload to Second Life!
