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From YourSITE.com *Program Basic  The Settings and what they do: Bevel, think of these shapes as cross-sections. They show how the edge of your image will be "cut out" to create the inner bevel effect. Increasing the Width amount to “31” makes a thicker bevel or decreasing to “1” to make a thinner bevel edge. Increasing the Smoothness setting will "round" out the bevel. Increasing the Depth setting will emphasize and increase the dark lines in the graphic, but will also darken the overall graphic. Increasing the Ambience setting will lighten the graphic, but lessen the depth emphasis. It also will give a all surrounding/encircling lighten color, like mood lighting. Increasing the Shininess will give a shiny effect that is more like a glow or gel look. Angle is the direction of your light source. Increasing the Intensity setting will lighten/darken the graphic. Sort of like a sunshiny day or a cloudy day. Decreasing the Elevation setting will enhance the lines but darken the graphic. This would be how your light source would hit your object from a vertical source. A setting of “0” the light is directly at the edge of your image and a setting of “90” the light is directly overhead “high-noon”! This setting is probably one of the most needed controls to adjust how your black/shadow edge appears. You will need to adjust the Angle setting to make the Light source of the Elevation to rotate around your image. Since High-noon (90) is half of 180, which is half of 360 degrees. It is important to note that most inner bevels work best on a white shape. They will take on the color that is in the color box. However if you have an element that you want to add an inner bevel to and it is colored. The best choice to use then is a very light gray in the color box for your inner bevel. How to get around the 31 pixel width limitation for inner bevels in PSP, http://loriweb.pair.com/x_BigBevel.html This occurs on 300ppi images, because in the beginning PSP was mainly used for web design images and Corel hasn’t upped our pixels limit yet!!   Another thing I am going to talk about is the Effects Browser in PSP. You can add an icon to your tool bars through Customization or go to the Effects Menu and select the Effects Browser. The first thing I like to do is create a template, usually a 6x6 300ppi image with a transparent background. Then I place different shapes (Circles, Squares, heart), fonts, dings and sometimes even a colored picture tube all on the same layer. Sometimes I add a color to the shape, so that I can see how the inner bevel reacts to a colored item. Then I create the same type of image at 96ppi. The reason for creating two at different resolutions is so that you can see how the 31 pixel bevel acts from 96 to 300 images. Then I save both of these templates in a folder for use later on.  This is what my sample image looks like: I added the blue background just so you could see my white shapes. Don’t add a background color before you use the Effects Browser. Open the Effects Browser and this is what you will see, PSP is rendering my Inner Bevel Presets. If the Effects>3D Effects>Inner Bevel folder is not selected in your window. PSP will render whichever default browser it is on first. Then you can select the folder of your choice. You can also set the Thumbnails size of the Effects Browser in your Preferences under the Display and Caching tab.  Once the Rendering is done you will see this:  Notice that I have the Inner Bevel tr_gold selected. You can either double click to apply the inner bevel or use the Apply button. Here is my before and after 300ppi image, see how the color changes from blue to green, pink to rust, while the whites are one color. Also notice how they appear in the browser window above.  Now if you want to see which settings were used, or to change the color, depth of bevel you can use the path below. I used this method to apply the same Inner Bevel to my 96ppi image.  Here are the “Last Used” settings and where you can change them.  Ok, now this image is confusing, I have my 300ppi image (original size) is the largest in the background. I have my (green) 96ppi image ( original size, dropped onto my 300ppi image). Then in the RED square I have the 96ppi image but I used the Deform/Pick Tool to enlarge the shapes.  The reason I did this is so that you can see the difference on the bevels. Look closely at the Inner Bevels on the “Rectangles & the Deco Design” in particular.  See how the bevels on the far left side look so different then the rectangles at the top! There is the difference and how it shows up on our bevels. However depending on what you are adding bevels to you can either: Create your shapes larger on a 96ppi image and bring them into a 300ppi image, or Create them smaller on a 300ppi image and deform them larger. However be careful and pay attention to how they look when you are done. Here is another example from within the Sculpture Dialog window, 96ppi on the left, 300ppi on the right, same settings applied.   Have fun playing in the Effects Browser and now go get your presets, as you saw I have 233 Inner Bevel presets alone!! You don’t need that many, but you should have at least 100!! © Copyright by YourSITE.com |