I've come across a couple of ways to make frames from the little "fans" that occur when you implode a patterned image using whole numbers above 1.

One way is to crop out the little fan and then try to get rid of excess lines by comping over areas with a little black gif or a black oval with a transprent center. I call this method the Isolated Fan Frame (see page 2).

The other way is to crop off a whole side.

Since cropping and comping with a whole side is easier than the 1st way I mentioned I'll deal with the easier way 1st. This is still pretty new to me, infact the 1st example below is only the 4th one I've made of this style. I'm starting to learn which patterns don't work well. The 3rd one I made with fishscales and it just looked jagged. Really bad. They look better when there's a bit of a solid edge.

For my 1st examples I used the pattern "circles" with a measurement of 580x580 and hit view. Then I went straight to Resize and shrunk it to 380x380 and then Negated. I negated because it was too white and when imploded the lines of the fan looked scattered and broken.

Went to FX, entered 15 and hit implode; went back to FX & added a -1 imlode

I chose these #s because I am trying to get the center point of the fan to kinda line up with the wingspan.


#1
Actual Size


Image #1
At this point you see 4 different fans. The first thing to do is floodfill-black the inner solid gray areas. I've been using 3 digit #s in the fuzz box in hopes the paint won't leak into the fans. Once that is done it's time to analyze the fans to decide which side I want to use. I like the left one. so I'll rotate right to position it across the top to make it easy to crop and later to composite.

I'm going to guess the length I want is 90 and I want the full 380 width. 90 was too much, 80 was just right, so 380x80+0+0. I resized it to 70x400! (the exclamation mark forces the width and height you want), and output and save.

For the 1st example I'm going to get the url of the Side which is 70x400, and make a black bg that is 70+70+400 which is 540 so...

Size the black BG to 400x540

Go to Composite and put in these settings:
Composite/Difference South
Composite/Difference North, Rotate 180.0
Go to Transform and Rotate Left
Composite/Difference South
Composite/Difference North, Rotate 180.0

The same could be accomplished by just using East and rotating and flopping at transform before each comp but I found the above directions much faster.

It should look like this:
(I Rotated Left again for displaying on this page)



Resize to 380x380



Get the temp url.
Go to Composite use Difference, Center, Rotate 90 and Composite and the result is Frame A.

Frame A

I also Normalized and then Spiffed it to lighten the light areas to better take on the color of whatever colored BG I decide to use to add color &/or texture.

On this last step you can also try Comp/Plus instead of Difference, but it may need to be darkened or shaded

You could do away with most of these steps and simply make a 380x380 black bg and comp/dif each side but I don't find it nearly as interesting.


Example 2


If I widen the cropped Side image I will get a frame with less room for an image but it will also produced a frame within a frame that with some cropping I'll end up with 2 frames. The inner smaller frame once cropped out and enlarged is a thinner frame with more room for an image. I started over with the pattern Crosshatch 180x180, then enlarged it to 480x480 and cropped to 420x420. This time I did Implode 8 and the Implode -1 to push the fan point back toward the edge. Cropped off the side at 110x420, output, got the url, hit back 3x and used Reset/black/fuzz9999 to make a black bg and then enlarged that to 420x640 and did the comping like above. When all 4 sides were covered I resized to 400x400, got the URL, Comp/Dif 90° and got Frame B. For Frame C I hit back and used Comp/Plus instead



Update: I have begun to find that if the design will take it, sizing the side to 450x100 and the black bg to 450x650, comping the 4 sides and then resizing to 400x400 for the final 90° comp, gives a larger space in the center for a future image. I'm afraid I won't get around to changing the examples for a week or so and hope this makes sense.

Frame B
Frame C


Inner Frames

I cropped small 250x250 frames out of both Frames B & C and then Comp/Diffed the 2 together (see below). Basicall all 3 frames are the same, but not. You can click on the small frames below to get a better look or to use.

Inner B

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Inner C

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Inner B & C

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...And cropping them smaller
(the smaller the frame, the more room for a center image), and comping with colored backgrounds.

xtrasmall B
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xtrasmall C
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xtrasmall B&C
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Adding Color


To add color find a colored BG and enlarge to the size of the frame and Comp/Multiply the frame over it. If it comes out a little too dark (it usuallly does), go to enhance and type 1.4 in the box and choose Gamma and click enhance. If that's too light hit back and try 1.3 or 1.2; if it's still too dark go higher.



Adding an Image

I like using black because when it comes to putting whatever image in the frame I can Comp/Dif and my center image will be unaltered except where it touches edges of the frame which at times is a nice touch or it will show me where I need to resize; or I can simply use Comp/Over resizing either the frame or the image until the fit is how I want it.

Another possibility is, like the image below, a central image with a large, somewhat solid colored background and just letting Comp/Dif do it's thing.




The Black Gif

I tend to get so carried away with making the frames I forget there needs to be room for and image. Enter the Black Gif 250. That just means I made myself a 250x250 black gif to comp over the center of some of my Godzilla sized frames I took this 400x400 frame to IM and after playing around resizing and comping I settled on 370x370 and comped the black gif Over and created Frame 11.

My second rendition of the same frame was made by enlarging the original to 412x412 and created Frame 12.


Observations

This Inner Frame was cropped from a frame I made with an enlarged pattern gray25. I have included it because of it's similarities to the inner frames above; in fact all of the inner frames I've made so far from any of the patterns have been extremely similar with the exception of the corners and the fans.

gray25

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Variations


Another way to go is to composite the side fan with itself using Rotate 180.
The side fan below is 430x90 so I made a black bg 430x430 and first comped it North.




This is how it looks simply using composite/difference, rotate 180


This is how it looks using comp/dif, rotate 180, +0+10


And this is how it looks using comp/dif, rotate 180, +0-20


From here it's just a matter of repeating the steps for each side.


Here's one I made by using comp/dif, rotate 180, +0-30 and then cropped 30 pixels from each side (370x370+30+30)




The 1st time I remember inadvertantly creating a "fan" was when I was playing around with Susanna's "Original Art Banners" tutorial. I had double waved one direction, done some swirls and implodes and didn't really like it so I then rotated left and waved it the other direction. When I imploded then, I had these 2 cool fans. I am experimenting with that and find I can create some very different frames and inner frames using double directional wave first (such as the banner at the top of this page).




Page 2: Isolated Fan Frames

Creating BGs at IM..

Image Magick Pattern Samples


Continue to Page 2



by ~Stranjer