Making Interlocking Chains in Photo Impact

There are times that you find a need to use a 'chain' in creating your grapics.  The problem I had, until I figured out this technique, was that the loops didn't look interlocked or realistic, or you had to go back and erase or retouch parts of the chain loop.  This tutorial will show you how to achieve this without having to erase or retouch the image.   We will start out making the 'loop' first, and you can save this loop to reuse over and over again, when saved as a UFO file in Photo Impact.  You will need a way to 'slice' your loop into two exacting & matching pieces. I used the Picture Dicer a Freeware Software program that I have found useful, countless times.  After we make our loop, we will build the chain.

Let's get started. To make our loop, open up a new image in Photo Impact, 100 x 100 pixels. Click on the PATH tool, MODE to PATH, and click on the EDIT button and choose CIRCLE. Now, draw your circle. (The settings are highlighted in the illustrations below in 'red'.)

Next, click on MODE and change it to 3-D PIPE

When you do this, you re left with a funny looking image that fills up your image, but we are going to change that and turn it into a loop.

Go to the Border Slider and slide it way down till you have a circle that is about the thickness that you want. I have left this one a little thicker for illustration so that you can see it a bit better.

Because I want my chain to end up looking like gold metal, I went to my Materials Gallery and applied the PRESET of Copper 2, Shading Metal, and Reflection Chrome 3. 

Now RIGHT CLICK and MERGE ALL and save your file as a JPEG.

It's time to Slice our Image into two pieces with a vertical slice. Open up the Picture Dicer program and open up your circle image.   Place your crosshair right in the middle of the top edge of the loop.  LEFT click your mouse and you will see a line appear showing you where the image is being cut into. (TIP: Right clicking your mouse makes horizontal slices whereas left clicking makes vertical slices.) Click on PROCESS IMAGE. The Pictures dicer will save the loop that is now in two pieces into whatever folder you directed it to save in.

Go back into Photo Impact and open up your two pieces of the chain link.

In order for us to be able to 'select' only the loop itself, we need to add a pixel or two to the image. Go to your FRAME and Shadow Gallery and click on the SHADOW TAB and UNCHECK the shadow, but make sure that your CANVAS option IS checked.  Select the color of canvas you are using on your background.  In this case it happens to be white.  We are going to add 2 pixels to the image. Click OK.  Repeat this process for the other half of your loop.

Go to your Selection tool and click on it. Hold down on your mouse until a slide out menu pops out, and select the MAGIC WAND TOOL. 

Make sure your MODE is set on NEW, and go to the left half of the loop and click on the background. Then RIGHT CLICK and click INVERT. DO NOT DESELECT THE LOOP. Save this file as a UFO file naming it Loop LEFT.  Repeat this step with your right half of your loop and save it as Loop RIGHT. 

By saving these, in UFO format you can now reuse these over and over again and not have to go through the steps of maing them each time you want to use them to make a chain. You can make several sizes to keep in your files for easy access and use if you like.

Building The Chain

Now for the fun part, of building our chain. Open up a brand new image that you are going to place your chain on.  You can make it any texture or color you want.  I decided to put mine on a nice soft pink background.

With my LEFT loop as the active image, go to EDIT/COPY. Now go to your main image to make it the active image,  and PASTE AS AN OBJECT.  Go to the RIGHT loop and make it the active image and go to EDIT/COPY. Again go to your main image making it the active image,  and PASTE AS AN OBJECT.  Use your Mover tool (the arrow button) to carefully  move your image together and make it look like it's one single image.  This is the beginning of our Chain.

Repeat these steps working with first your left half of the loop and then the right half.

We now have two loops but they dont look realistic, because the chain is not interlocking with one another, as shown in the next illustration.

Here is how we make our chain interlock ! Make sure your Mover Tool (the arrow button) is selected. You will see that there are ORDER arrows above them.  Since your right half of your loop is still the active layer, click on the DOWN arrow.

You will now see that the right half of your loop has been moved to the lower layer.  Now the chain actually looks like a chain and looks interconnected.

Continue adding loops until you have your chain made.   When you are finished RIGHT CLICK MERGE ALL. Now you can add jewels to it, or anything else to make your chain interesting. Here is a beautiful charm bracelet that I made with a chain.

If you would like to try creating the link, for practice, you are welcome to download my 2 Loop halves, in UFO format here.

Click on the E-Book button below, to download and work on this tutorial offline

Happy Creating !!