Soft Border Effect
Making soft borders for images on PSP is not exactly difficult :P. However, you need to know a few super simple things
inorder to be able to do this effect.
Setting up
Remember, its impossible to save things as "half transparent". This means your image is either completely see-through,
or its not see-through at all. Since some semi-transparencies will be created with this effect, its important that you
do not use a transparent background. Why? Because on a white background, when saving the image your computer will turn the
half transparency just into whatever color it is on a white background. If you save it on a transparency, it might get
messed up. Sounds complicated, but as long as you use a white background everything will be OK :P. So, make a new file
with a white background, and paste your image onto it. Make sure that the image is smaller than the background ;).
Softening the edges
I am going to be using this image to start out with:
Now, most Neopets images are saved as a .gif. We are going to need to increase the amount of colors on your image. To do
this, go to Colors >> Increase Color Depth >> 16 million colors (24 bit) and select OK. Set both front and fore color to
white, then choose the eraser tool. Set the hardness to 0 and the tool size to about 50. Now being erasing the edges of the
image. Here is what my image looks like now:
That's all there is to it ;). There is also a second version of this guide available for PSP 8 since it is ever so slightly
different :P. This is one of the few effects, by the way, were it looks nicer without a border ;).
~ Kathrin