One more quick one!

Please post your tutorials here for ProShow Producer only. Provide a lnk if you have a file that can be downloaded by others. This is not a discussion section, but rather a source for sharing tutorials.
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One more quick one!

Postby VidQueen » Fri Apr 04, 2008 11:28 am

Hi folks!

Here's one more really quick tutorial, also and excerpt from the longer one. This one explains how to use the Curved Frame PNG in Photoshop.

Jennifer

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Postby seektheburd » Fri Apr 04, 2008 11:49 am

As always, nice tutorials Jennifer!

Hugs,
Stephanie

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Postby cherub » Fri Apr 04, 2008 12:00 pm

Thank you Jennifer for this nice tutorial.
But I have an additional question related to curved frames. In one of the Photodex demos, they show a curved frame and they also zoom into it.
I think it's done with a mask, but my knowledge of graphic programs is so limited, that I was not able to create any proper mask for a curved frame.
Can you explain that one too, please ?
(It's in the demo for photographers), at the beginning.

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Postby VidQueen » Fri Apr 04, 2008 12:06 pm

cherub wrote:In one of the Photodex demos, they show a curved frame and they also zoom into it.
I think it's done with a mask, but my knowledge of graphic programs is so limited, that I was not able to create any proper mask for a curved frame.
Can you explain that one too, please ?
(It's in the demo for photographers), at the beginning.


Sure Mona, I'd be glad to :) I'm afraid I'll have to add that to my "To Do" list for Monday, though! My weekend seems to be filling up with birthday parties and house hunting!

Thanks for taking the time to watch my, not-so-expert, photoshop tutorials!

Jennifer

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Postby sheldonk » Sun Apr 06, 2008 11:36 am

Hi

Jennifer, thanks for the macaroni and cheese!! How did you know I love that stuff? They served it as the main dish at my wedding. It was a budget affair I'm afraid. Shoes were required however.

Since you are taking the weekend off, I thought I would jump in and help.

I believe Mona is looking for an effect similar to this:

http://www.photodex.com/sharing/viewsho ... 1627&alb=0

Here is how I did it!

How to create the frame in photoshop.

1. Create a new document and fill with color white. Create a new layer by doing a "create new layer from background".
Go to the layer window and delete the background

2. Using the marque selection tool, make a selection in the middle area of the document where the photo will go.
Just remember to keep the white border as symetrical as possible.

3. Hit the delete key. You now have a rectangular frame. With checkerboard in the middle. The checkerboard signifies the are that you erased.

4. Good idea to save your work at this point. Remember to save your file as a png or psd.

5. If you want to distort your frame, you will need to increase the size of your document. Do that by going to image/canvas size.
Select something like two inches for both numbers. Hit okay. The image should now have checkerboards in the middle of the frame
and outside the frame.

6, Hit control-t to enter transform mode. Press the right mouse key and hit warp. You will see 3 little dots on each edge of
the frame. Pull these until you get a frame you are happy with. Hit return.

7. Save your document again. You now have a warped frame! Should be similar to Jennifers.


How to create the mask.

1. Please follow these directions exactly. Otherwise you will write over the frame you made in the last section.

2. Open the frame from the last section.

3. Goto image/image size and write down the number of pixels for the width and height of the frame document.

4. Create a new file (file/new) and enter the width and height from step 3. Make the initial colot white.

5. Go back to the frame document. Select the magic wand tool. Click in the middle of the frame. The checkerboard area should have
little ants marching around it. Do not get your can of Raid!

6. Hit edit/fill and enter black as the fill color.

7. With the magic wand, click on the new black area. Press control-c to copy it.

8. Close the frame document. Do not save it.

9. In the document you created in step 4, hit edit/paste. The black inside of your frame is now in this document. Save mask as jpg.

What to do in producer.

1. Create a new slide.

2. Put your frame on a layer and the frame mask on another layer. Make sure the top layer is the frame and the bottom layer
is the mask.

3. Add one more layer with the picture you want in the frame. This layer should be under the other 2.
Go to the motion tab and adjust the rotation, movement and size of the beginning and ending keyframe.

4. Goto the mask layer (#2) and make it a mask. Select grayscale as the mask type and check the inverted box.

That should do it! Hit play and enjoy.


Special thanks to my brother for appearing in this demo show. He is a doctor and a lawyer but we like to ridicule him whenever we can.

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Postby cherub » Sun Apr 06, 2008 5:54 pm

Sheldon, I am awed !
This is exactly the kind of frame I was asking about. Thank you so much for this very detailed explanation!
However, since it is now the ungodly hour of 5 a.m here, and I still have to have my 1st cup of coffee to even begin to understand your explanations,
could I please ask for another favor: Could you please show here the final jpg that serves as mask ?
I may be needing my 2nd and even 3rd cup of coffee to follow these instructions, so I think that a model will help me.
Question: in your example, the image still has a black thin line (border) around (in between the white frame and the image of your brother). Why is that?
Believe it or not, the Proshow part is the easiest for me, but the very mention of Photoshop gives me bad vibes...
Yeah, I need my cop of coffee now. :P
Last edited by cherub on Sun Apr 06, 2008 10:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Postby cherub » Sun Apr 06, 2008 10:21 pm

Sometime later, and after several coffees !
I successfully created my bent frame and the corresponding mask!! :D Thank you Sheldon for teaching me these techniques, though I applied them in PaintShop Pro and not in Photoshop (old habits die hard..)

But now come the questions, and maybe Jennifer or somebody else can help me out:

I work with Producer 3.0.1992 which is not the last version. The mask that I created according to Sheldon's instructions (or at least what I think that he instructed), does not work as a mask in my version. No matter how I try (grayscale, alpha, inverse, non inverse) - it's not working properly.

What does work, is the negative of what Sheldon explained. Here is what I mean:

Image

My mask works as grayscale, and if I inverse it, I can get another layer, or the background underneath. I can do no such thing with Sheldon's mask.

Why is this? Jenniffer? Somebody else maybe ?

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Postby VidQueen » Mon Apr 07, 2008 4:02 am

Hi Mona,

First, Thanks Sheldon!! I had a wonderful time this weekend....not working :)

Ok, when it comes to masks remember this phrase: "White Reveals, Black Conceals". This is the main reason most people have such a horrible time using the Heart Mask that comes with Photodex's masks...it's backward! The first thing I had to do with thier mask (which is a black heart surrounded by white) is take it into photoshop and reverse it. Actually, I have a white heart with a tranparent background, PNG. That was the only way to get the white outline that I used in my Masking tutorial that's on the Photodex Site.

I'm not sure why you couldn't work with Sheldon's frame, though. Checking the Invert Mask really should take care of that problem. That might have something to do with the version your working with (3.0 instead of 3.2), but don't quote me on that!

Glad you got it working Mona! (and, btw.....I'm addicted to coffee!)
Jennifer

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Postby sheldonk » Mon Apr 07, 2008 4:41 am

Mona,

Sounds like your slide is stacked like this.

1. Frame
2. Frame mask
3. Photo to show in frame.
4. Picture for background.

Take a look at layer 2. Be sure the mask is only 1 layer deep!

Tonight I will post all the files for you. The black outline you mention was done on the frame layer. I used drop shadow or inner glow or something like that. Can't quite remember!



Believe it or not, the Proshow part is the easiest for me, but the very mention of Photoshop gives me bad vibes...


Mona. Don't be afraid of a photo editing program. Especially Photoshop! You really need to know how to use both programs. I don't believe that one is harder than the other. But just knowing Producer will only get you so far. Add Photoshop to the mix and you get 10 times further (or is it farther?).

Sheldon

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Postby cherub » Mon Apr 07, 2008 5:49 am

Hi Jennifer and Sheldon,

Thank you so very much for your help.
I think indeed that something is either very wrong with this version of Producer (3.0.1992) or something is wrong on my computer.

Jennifer, your heart mask is a perfect example of what's happening, and in fact, working with a png instead of a jpg is easier.
Producer sees the transparency of the png as black, so all one needs is to fill the rest with white. In jpg one needs to put in the black as well.
Now I finally understand also some of the other tutorials on masks given in this forum.

Sheldon, I am very grateful to you for teaching me some tricks I'd never have thought of without you. Because of your tutorial I now know how to make a mask in a graphic editor !!
I didn't say that I am afraid of graphic editors - just of Photoshop. I use PaintShop Pro instead, as I mentioned in my post before.

The order of layers is not the problem for me. If I take my mask and your mask and arrange the layers the same way, the result is not the same, even if I invert the grayscale mask. That's what I'm saying, and showing. Some bug or some other thing probably in this version of Producer that I'm using.
Somehow, I need to find a workaround for this.
Many many thanks to you for the time that you invested in these instructions.

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Sheldons Mask

Postby mikemullett » Mon Apr 07, 2008 6:15 am

Hi Sheldon & Mona

Sheldon great tutorial, followed you script and it worked a treat, it took me Further! into my understanding

Why is this? Jenniffer? Somebody else maybe ?


Mona: Am running Photodex 3.2.2047 and photoshop CS3, I like you have learnt from Sheldon how to create masks and frames in a photoeditor.

This is my mask: Image

Mike
There's no such thing as problems, only challenges
Nikon D5300 DSLR, PSP, Photoshop CS6, Premiere Elements 8, Adobe After Effects. Have just built a Win 7 Core I5 machine, 8G ram, 1TB hard disk

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Postby sheldonk » Mon Apr 07, 2008 7:15 am

I just realized that in 4 months, I have gone from someone who had no clue how this program worked to someone writing tutorials.

I couldn't have done it without this forum! Thank you to everyone.

Sheldon

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Postby sheldonk » Mon Apr 07, 2008 7:24 am

Producer sees the transparency of the png as black, so all one needs is to fill the rest with white. In jpg one needs to put in the black as well.


Mona, I just noticed this statement. That's actuall not quite true. Producer sees the transparency as nothing more than a pane of glass and lets whatever is below it shine through. If what is under it is black, you get black. If a photo is in the transparent area, you get the photo. Remember, the frame is not a mask.

The jpg has black because that is the mask. Think of the black part of the mask as being a stencil. The stencil tells Producer what to show in the layer beneath it.

The purpose of the mask in this example is simply to keep the photo from spilling over outside the frame!

I hope that makes sense.

Sheldon

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Postby cherub » Mon Apr 07, 2008 7:45 am

Sheldon, I somehow don't express myself well, it seems.
I meant that when you use a png as a MASK, that's when Producer sees transparent areas as black. That's what Jennifer also wrote about her heart example.

Anyway, I was so impressed with your bent pictures and the one that Mike created, that back I went to PaintShop Pro, and discovered a tool named:
Mesh Warp. This tool will do the job of bending.
So, you taught me well Sheldon !

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Postby sheldonk » Mon Apr 07, 2008 7:55 am

Anyway, I was so impressed with your bent pictures and the one that Mike created, that back I went to PaintShop Pro, and discovered a tool named:
Mesh Warp. This tool will do the job of bending.
So, you taught me well Sheldon !


You could have called Superman!

Okay...not funny!

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