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?

How can I frame a graphic?

Here I will show you the quickest and easiest way to frame a graphic. There are tons of resources out on the web that offer excellent tutorials on Framing Graphics. This is a quick and easy way and easy to understand.

Since I don't have a lot of time to make graphics and frames, I have made templates of everything and I just re-use them when I need a new graphic.

What I mean when I say making templates, is that when I do have time, I make blank frames and then save them and re-use them over and over again. This saves me time when I need to make a quick birthday or other graphic quickly. Here I will provide you with everything you need to make a frame template for a graphic.

Here is one of my Frame Templates. Size is only reduced in the coding, so saving this will be the regular size I have.

I first want to color the background color but if I color it with the frame there, it will also color the frame. I want the frame to remain gold, so here are the steps I then take to make that happen.
1 ) MAKE A COPY...close down the original
2 ) Click on the Selection tool on the tool bar.
3 ) Next click on Selection Type in the Control Panel (Box on right). Set it to Rectangular. Set the Feathering to 0 and Antialias has to be UNCHECKED
4 ) Now go inside of the frame and get as close to the frame as possible and go all around the inside of the frame until the marching ants are showing the entire inside green of the frame.
5 ) Now when you put your cursor inside of the ants, you will see the mover tool
.
6 )Go to Edit, Click on Cut and then click Paste as a New Image
You will now have an emtpy frame with the gold border trim. Save it as frame2.psp Click here and save to your computer.
7) Now you have the inside of the frame and are ready to color it.

I colored it brown because I know that this color will go great with the graphic.

8) Now place the inside colored graphic above to inside the empty picture frame called frame2.psp
Save your new graphic as frame3.jpg. Now your new graphic should look like this.

9 )Before we add the graphic, you want to make sure that it is a nice size. Go to Selections, Select All, Go to Edit, Click Paste as New Image.

10 ) I like to make most of my gifts at a size of 250 pixels wide and 300 pixels long.
Resize to 250 Width and 360 Length. You will notice that it looks a little blurry and the background inside the frame, doesn't show much definition. Then I take the graphic that I copied to make this one and now I will make sure that the new graphic 250 w x 360 h will have the definition in the background. I then copy the right hand cover from half way in the middle to the left side. I then paste it into the frame I have resized and it will look something like this.

Here you can see that I pasted it to the top left hand and the bottom part is still with no definition, so now I copy and paste the bottom left hand corner over on the new graphic as well. Now the total left side of the graphic has definition and I go half way down the middle and to the left unti the entire left half side of the graphic has marching ants. Now go to Edit, Copy and Paste as New Selection and place it over the new graphic and then align the frame up.


Bang..now you have something like this.

Now you are ready to add the flower graphic called yellowrose2.psp. You must resize it so open up the PSP. I resized it to 150 wide by 180 long.
Now I add that to the frame above and then have this.

What other things are important in making a graphic?

The most important thing you need to know about making a graphic, if you are not artistic and can't draw is that you will need to find graphics on the web.
You need to find a copyrighted FREE graphic. Not every graphic out on the web is Copyright Free.

You have to ensure that the graphics you use are either Copyright and Royalty Free to use before you can use them.
If you wish to make a graphic using an artist's work, then you need to get permission to do so from the artist. Most artist's are happy to give permission providing you give them the credit and link it back to their site. Remember..art is their living and they have chosen to sell their artwork to do so. Credit and a link back are small prices to pay for using their artwork.