This tutorial will show you how to take an ordinary image, and turn it into a beautiful metal engraved image. The thing I like best about using Photo Impact, is that seldom if ever, do you need to rely on other filter programs for effects. The above image was made with nothing other than Photo Impact. Ok, lets get started. Here is the image that I used for this tutorial. You can right click and copy this one, or use one of your own if you prefer.
Start with opening a new image. For this tutorial I used an image 300 x 300
Click on the EASY Palette, and then the SHAPES Library. I chose a round circle for this project. Double click on the circle, or drag it over to your blank image. Then you will need to resize it to make it larger, by clicking on the corner and dragging it out to fit the image.
Now click on your PATH TOOL, and change the MODE to 3D Round. Slide your Border button down to make the image a little flatter.
Now, go to your EASY PALETTE again, and click on the PRESET tab, and then the Copper 3 setting. You'll have an image that looks something like this.
Now click on the OPTIONS button. ( It's that little button up there on your Attribute Bar ) When that screen opens up click on the BUMP tab. We are going to use our image as our bump map, so click on the BUMP MAP box and then on FILE. When the Open File Dialog Box opens up, navigate and find the image you saved at the beginning of the tutorial, and click on it.
Now reduce the density down to about 50% as shown in the next illustration.
Now click on the BORDER/DEPTH Tab, and decrease the border down to 9 pixels, and the Depth at 30. Refer to the settings in the next illustration.
Now click OK
You should have an image that looks something like this. But lets add an edge to the engraved image. Right click on your image and MERGE.
Now go to your STANDARD Selection tool, and then under SHAPE on the attribute bar, choose CIRCLE. Then click on your background, and you should see a circular 'selection' appear. (the dotted lines will appear and be active) You can use your mover tool to center it over your engraving, or you can do it later when you have applied the edge.
Now go to the top of your screen and click on WEB / Frame Designer. First click on the Shadow Tab and uncheck the shadow. Then click on the Frame Tab. I picked 3D Frame with the following settings.
Now I have a pretty edge on my engraved image.
I wanted my background pink, so I right click merged & flood filled the white background with a soft pink. I then went back to the Frame Gallery and applied a pretty Classic Frame to compliment the engraved image. I used the ULead Smart Saver to compress my image, and saved it to file.
I'm sure by playing with the settings, you can come up with many variations of this technique. Have fun and experiment with all the possibilities you have with Photo Impact. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. Email me if you have questions.
Click on the E-Book button below, to download and work on this tutorial offline
