Free Frames, and two Tutorials

I've been having fun with frames recently, and with my new SoulGlow Light Layers as well :)  I thought it was time for a new freebie and a for new tutorial.

Let's start with the tutorials first, we'll see how to use the SoulGlow Light Layers in the first steps and then we'll use our newly edited photo and make it fit and clip it inside a frame.

What I did looks like this, but this tutorial for Light Layers applies to whatever photo you intend to work with and whatever Light Layer you select.

1.  Open your photo and the Light Layer you want to use (I chose two). I chose "After the Storm" for it's colder tones, my photo having already a lot of blue in it.  Then I thought I would balance the overall tones and skin tone by adding "Misty Dawn".  You chose what you think fits the original photo you plan to work on :)

2.  Drag your Light Layer on top of your photo, resize to fit with the marquee tool.  

3.  Blend the Light Layer using "Soft Light" mode,  I left it at 100%.

4. Drag your second Light Layer (if needed) on top of the previous one.

 5. Blend using "Soft Light" mode again, but this time you may need to reduce the opacity around 75%  to avoid areas that look burned. 

6. Go to Layer > Merge Visible, we need to merge our layers because we are gonna add this photo into our frame next.

That's it!  A couple of fast and easy steps with the SoulGlow Light Layers and your image gained light and more zip.  It's like an instant makeover and I'm really addicted to those new Light Layers, I always start my editing with them now.  Some of them have a subtle texture as well, so I can choose to have light and texture at the same time!

Now let's move on to the framing tutorial.

1. Open the frame you wish to use.  In this case I selected the "Brown Paper frame".

2. Go back to your image.  Image needs to be 6 in X 4 in @ 300 dpi to fit nicely into those frames, so I now need to resize.  I could go to Image > Image size and enter manually the dimensions or I can simply use the frame resizing action already created to give me a 6X4 or a 4X6 if I wanted a vertical layout.  Oh!  I didn't mention, the Frame resizing action is free and included in the following Free Frames Set.  How cool is that?

 3. Now that you have played the resizing action your image is smaller :) 

4. Drag it on top of your frame, image has to be on the top layer, above the clipping mask.

5. This particular frame has a tilted angle, if you wish to give the same angle to your photo, go to Edit > Transform > Rotate.  Rotate slightly your image by one of the corner anchor points until it has the same alignment than your frame,  Click on the check icon when done.

6.  All we need to do now is clip our image in the frame.  If you are not used to clipping masks, this may be new for you but it's really simple.  Move your mouse pointer until it's right on the line separating the clipping mask and your image (little red arrow).  Hold the Alt key with your mouse pointer still on the line, you will see a little clipping icon appear, (two little circles), when you see this icon, click your mouse.  The photo is now clipped to the frame.  Voilà!  You see the little arrow pointing to the layer below?  That confirms your image has been clipped.  If you wish to Unclip, same steps as for clipping.

  If you are still wondering exactly what is a clipping mask, well it masks all parts of the image on the above layer with the shape of the layer it's clipped to.  That's how you can get your images in  fancy cut-out frames or templates.

I hope this two-part tutorial was helpful, now I think we're ready to frame these images :)

And if you wish to add some SoulGlow to them, the Light Layers have just been released in the Boutique.

Framing is nice, but it's easier with pretty frames, so here are some frames I designed for you.  Six different frames in the set, the resizing actions for PSE5&6, PSE 7&up and CS.  If you are new to actions, please go to the Install Actions tab at the top and there you'll find all the infos you need to install them in your editing software.

Download your Free Frames set and Resizing action HERE