Custom Masks

NOTE to lurkers & snaggers - You are welcome to do the project, but DO NOT snag the images from this tute and post them in any other group. Koya Image Magic Thanks to Susan for all the beautiful images used with the masks. Everyone enjoyed the gabeemasks so much, I thought it would be fun to learn to make your own & customize it to suit your image. I take no credit for the original concept, and I am looking for the site / person who made the masks we have been using, in order to link / credit her. This is to pass on psp techniques that can be done at IM. I'm thinking these will be a lot of fun as the holidays roll around. NEW - Another Way to do These Masks I messed around with 2 methods, and this is the easiest one. It uses bars - any bar will do, depending on your image and the look you want. Here's a great site with tons of bars.   Nevr2l82 Bars The basics: Make a couple of black xcs - 180x200, 200x230, 200x250 etc. Add a white border to each, 3x3 or 4x4. Save them. Then, make a 550 x 400 white XC Next, draw a rectangle. Fill color = rgba(0,0,0,.50)     No Stroke color Co-ordinates - 70,70 480,330 Under F/X choose SWIRL @ +300 or -300 Under effects, SPREAD @ 40 Under effects, GAUSSIAN BLUR @ 30x30 Output & save this template NOTE - You can experiment with smaller or larger rectangles, darker color, different swirls, more or less spread, and lower GB, but be careful not to spread all that over the entire white surface, or it will pickup the colors from your image when you composite. You might want to experiment with motion blur after the spread, instead of GB, too. The rest will depend on YOUR bar, so you'll need to make adjustments as you go. Next choose a bar, one that has a _transparent_ bg. Matte out the bg, if necessary. I chose this  leaf bar . Take your bar (in your find bx) and your template to IM. Composite the bar North,  adjusting it down so that it doesn't cover all of the blurred area at the top. Use DSTOUT as the composite. Composite the bar South using the same composite - position it either exactly matching the top, or offset as you desire. You may also want to flip or flop the image before comp'ing the south bar. Paint the cutout areas BLACK, FUZZ 9999, COLOR, REPLACE. If your painted area has the jaggies, use median filter @ 1 to smooth them out. Under effects. Now composite your black rectangles in any fashion you want. You should have something that looks like this:   Bar Mask After Composite All images were comp'd using SCREEN. The second way is to use dingbats. The basics are the same, just use a ding, instead of the bars. Using scale helps to draw the dings out or down, so experiment with that. These were made at IM with dingbats from House of Lime DesignerMotiffsThree Mask Finished Result   FashionLadies Mask  Finished Result These were made in PSP, and gave me the idea that we could do this at IM. Notice the extra border around the black rectangles - you can do this, too. Make your black xc a lttle smaller, 3x3 white border, 30x30 in a light grey color, & another 3x3 white border. In order to make the first one at IM, you would need to make a light gray rect. Comp it on the template, anno your ding, then comp the black rect. 1 2 3 4 5 ©August 2, 2007 Gnubee & Choco Club Choco Tutes Do not reproduce or duplicate this tute. Please post this page.