Photobie Forum

odidio · Joined: 01 Mar 2006 Posts: 89 Location: N.S. Canada

In this one we'll try to make a simple wooden plaque.
You can make all kind of different shapes and then add text, pictures or whatever you like, they can be fun to send to people.

You will need to get yourself a wood texture and place it in Photobie's texture folder. You can choose some from http://www.grsites.com/textures/ or copy/save the one here that I'll use.

Start off with a fairly large background, I chose 500x500 and white.

Click and bring up the menu for the 'fill shape' tool then choose the 'rectangle'. Put a check mark in the 'apply texture' box, refresh the texture list if you have to then find your wood texture and select it.

Click and drag out a wooden square or rectangle shape inside the large background.
(click on thumbnails to enlarge)

Now we'll make a dark border for the plaque. Choose the 'rectangle selections tool' and drag out a selection a little ways inside the wood layer you have.

Try to position the selection so it's in the middle of your wood layer, go to the top of Photobie and click on the green button 'invert'. This will invert your selection so you can get just the outer part of the wood.

On the layer manager click on the 'clone' drop menu and then, 'clone only the selected area on current layer'.

With your new border layer selected, go to the 'adjust color balance' drop menu and click 'adjust color balance'. Lower the brightness a small amount and click ok.

Now we'll create the metal center for the plaque.

Change the primary color to dark gray and leave the secondary white.

Select the 'rectangle fill shape' again.

This time we will make a gradient so check off the 'gradient' box up top - size 400 - Forward diagonal and double. Now drag out another rectangle even smaller than the others and position it in the center using the (hand) 'move tool'.

Now we will add a little noise to the metal for looks.

Make sure your metal layer is selected on the layer manager and got to 'clone' - 'clone current whole layer'. Next go to the top menu, 'filter' - embedded filters' - 'jitter' and move the slider all the way to the right. OK.
You will notice the effect moved a little outside the original metal layer so just move your cursor to the bottom corner of the jitter and move it in a bit (resize) so it's just over the the metal one underneath.
Expand the layer manager if you haven't already and lower the opacity of the jitter a little. Once you have it where you like it, put check marks in the last two layers ( the metal and the jitter ones) then go to ' merge' - 'merge remove'.

Now we want to cut off the corners of our new merged metal.

Click on the 'circle selection tool'. ( If your old rectangle selection comes up on your image, just go to the top and click on the green 'clear button). Now drag out a small circle selection and place it over one of the corners of your metal piece. Try to put the corner of the metal in the center of the circle selection.
On the layer manager click on the 'cut layer's selected region' button. The corner of your metal layer should now be gone.
Click on the 'circle selection tool' again and you should see the old circle selection show up.
Move the circle selection over another corner of your metal layer and, 'cut layer's selected region'.
Do this for all four corners.

Now you might like to make the metal layer stand out a bit.
With the metal layer selected in the layer manager go to 'clone' - 'clone current whole layer'.
On the layer manager select the metal layer behind this one ( should be called 3:DrawFillShape ), go to the 'adjust color balance' and darken it by sliding the brightness button all the way to the left. OK Use the (hand) 'move tool' to move this darkened layer slightly up and to the left. ( Or to how you like it.)

Now you can also add some screws or rivets for effect.

For rivets, change the primary color to black and leave the secondary color white.
Click the 'fill shapes' - 'circle'.
Make sure the 'gradient' box is checked up top and change the size to 20. Leave the rest, 'Forward diagonal' and 'double'.
Now drag out a small circle on your image. If you are happy with it, clone it three times and place them where you want.

Now you can add text, a picture or what ever you like.
If you would like you could also now use the 'rectangle selection tool' to select the area just around all your plaque and click the 'crop' button up top to give you your plaque image all together and without the white background.

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odidio · Joined: 01 Mar 2006 Posts: 89 Location: N.S. Canada

Here are a couple more examples.

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Cheng · Site Admin Joined: 11 Aug 2005 Posts: 104

It is amazing

It is looks very professional!