What do I need to know to make a graphic?
What do I need to make a Graphic?
How to Make a graphic
How can I frame a graphic?
What other things are important in making a graphic?

What do I need to know to make a graphic?

Making a graphic isn't as hard as you may think. If you want to make a personal graphic for a gift or for your web site, you need to know a few things about graphics.
You have to have a program for making graphics.
You then need to find a graphic to make one with if you cannot draw.



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What do I need to make a Graphic?

You need a program for making graphics. I use Paint Shop Pro (PSP) and you can get a trial version Free Trial PSP here. Once you have the program, you need to find a graphic to make a graphic with, unless you are very artistic and can draw.

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Let's begin and start making a graphic. I will supply one here. Save it to your hard drive so you can work with it. The actual size of the graphic is 305 x 390 pixels. I've just reduced the size in the coding so when you save it, it will be the actual size. Remember where you saved it to.

Nice graphic but not very good for a gift...but we can change that. Open Paint Shop Pro (I have PSP 4,5 and 6 but am comfortable with PSP 5).

I don't think that the versions are that much different but you'll have to manage with what I know. Sorry :)

Now find the graphic and open it in PSP. You NEVER work with the original graphic, so lets make a copy of it now so you can work with the copy.

Go to Selections, Now Select All, Go to Edit and Select Copy and then Paste as New Selection. Now you have a new graphic to work with...so close the original and leave it alone. Save this new graphic as yellowrose2.jpg (just so you know that you have made a copy of the original.

Now to make a new graphic, we need to get rid of the white background so we can use the graphic as a gift. Here are the instructions to remove the color.

For a complete description and graphic of the PSP Tool Palette , click to view

There are many ways to clean a graphic but the one I most frequently use is the magic wand.

1) Click on the magic wand, a control panel should be showing, set the Feather to 6, Match Mode - RGB Value and Tolerance -10. Click on the white part of the graphic on the left side. You will see marching ants around the area that you have just clicked on. This is the area you will remove.

Put your cursor over the marching ant area and you will see this   the Mover. Take the white part entirely off the graphic. Since I am doing this with you, there is still a part of the white left on the right side. Repeat the same steps for the second half of the white. Now it looks like all of the white area has been removed, but it hasn't.
If you enlarge the pic (View - Zoom in 3-1) You will see a small shadow around the picture. Starting at the left, click as close to the rose as possible...a thick line should appear half way around the rose. Remove that as well. Now go to the right and do the same thing.

Then to test and see if the graphic is entirely cleaned, I click on the left side. If the marching lines do not go completely around the graphic....then it is not cleaned.

I then use the Selection Tool and set it to Elipse in the Control - Tools Control panel and Feather 6. Then I proceed to clean around the area checking with the Magic Wand tool to see which areas are left. The two areas you will have to clean using Elipse is above the green leave at the top of the graphic and the brown leaf on the right hand side. Once you remove the two parts there, you will be able to see using the magic wand that the ants now go completely around the graphic. Once I get the magic wand to go completely around the graphic...then I know that it is clean.

Now save it as yellowrose1.psp....by saving in PSP, you have the clear graphic to work with. In PSP format the grey and white checkered boxes are totally invisible so you have a complete transparent rose at this time. If you put it on any background, the only thing showing will be the rose and the background.

Because you cannot post a psp format on a webpage, you may right click below and save it to your computer and then open to view in PSP


Click here to view it

Because it is actually transparent, I have already made it into a graphic as seen below.