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Screen shots were taken from PSP7 and Flaming Pears Flexify and as such have their own copyright.

For this tutorial you will need PSP7, KPT5 ShapeShifter, Flaming Pear's Super BladePro, Flaming Pear's Flexify 1.5, Texturizer and my Beveled Mirror preset. This needs to be extracted to your KPT5/Presets/shapeshifter folder.

1. Open an image of your choice ideally approximately 300x300, SHFT+D to duplicate and promote to layer, close the original. Effects/Plugin filters/Flaming Pear/Flexify. Click on the red arrow to browse your hard drive for the Flexify/Flexify Presets. Open Ball to Equirectangular, Mirror Ball should automatically open as both input and output. These are the settings I used but have a play around just to get the feel of the program or until you like the effect.

We need to isolate the image. I don't like using the magic wand as you end up with jagged edges so create a new layer, use the preset shapes tool, ellipse, make sure that antialias is the only one checked, set your foreground and background to white. Starting at the top left corner draw out your shape. If your shape is not centered use the mover tool to centralize it, if you can't see the edge of your flexified image use the deformation tool to make it smaller. Selections/select all, Selections/float, Selections/invert. Now click on your flexified image layer and hit delete. You won't see anything, just your shape with a transparent background. Selection/select none. In the layer palette click on the glasses of your shape layer to make it invisible, now click on your flexified image layer to make active.

2. Selections/select all, Selections/float, Effects/Plugin filters/KPT5/shapeshifter using Cool kitchen as your environment apply my beveled mirror preset. Selections/select none. This next bit all depends on how big your image is, mine was 286x286, I resized mine down by 75%, effects/sharpen/unsharp mask, radius 1.00, strength 75% clipping 0. I then went to Image/canvas size and changed it to 400x400, I like a lot of working space *s*

Not sure about using KPT presets, click here

3. Still on the flexified image Selections/select all, Selections/float, Selections/modify/expand by 50. Create a new layer naming it frame, flood fill with white. Selections/modify/Contract by 8, delete. Selections/modify/contract by 36. flood fill with white, Selections/modify/contract by 8, delete. Selections/select none.

4. With the text tool select a dingbat with vector and antialias checked and filled white. Place this on the edge of your frame and adjust the shape until you're happy with it. *hint* Because you are making the text as a vector this will automatically make a new vector layer. In the layer palette right click the vector layer and convert to raster.

5. In the layer palette right click your dingbat layer and duplicate, Image/mirror. Make all the layers barring your two dingbat layers invisible, merge visible. Right click and duplicate, Image/rotate by 90 degrees. Bring the other layers back into view.............ooooppps......the eclipse layer is still there, we can delete that. Your duplicated layer may be slightly out of line and may need moving. Make your flexified image invisible and merge all visible. 

6. We're back to the selections bit.............Selections/select all, Selections/float, Effects/plugin filters/Flaming Pear/Super BladePro and apply one of the presets, I used a silver one :o) Selections/select none. With the magic wand click on the out side of your merged layer, Selections/invert, Selections/modify/contract by 4. Create a new layer and in the layer palette drag it down to the bottom. Flood fill with a colour of your choice. Effects/plugin filters/texturizer, I used these settings. Selections/select none.

7. Effects/illumination effects/lights, I had a play with the presets and ended up using the Soft Light (top) I left the light colour as it was but try playing with it to see the effect. Click on the merged layer, this should be your frame. Now I want to add a drop shadow but I don't want it to show beyond the edge of the frame. This is the only way I can figure to do that. Selections/select all, Selections/float, Selections/defloat, create a new layer naming it shadow and apply a drop shadow with the following settings - 

Selections/select none, click on the merged layer (frame) to make active, with the magic wand click on the outside area. Selections/modify/expand by 4, now click on the shadow layer and delete. Merge all visible layers and there you have your framed image :o)

        
*note* the resulting image from this tutorial are yours to do with as you see fit

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