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Create a designer picture frame for Visualizer Photo FX.
You can use any designer software of your choice to design a picture frame. When you design your own picture frame, think of it as building your own puzzle game, where all pieces must come together in the right order. In this tutorial you will learn how to make your own Picture Frame Plugin for Visualizer Photo FX.
Creating the jpg files.
A picture frame consist of 8 jpg square pieces, which were all cut/cropped from the original picture frame, and saved as each their individual files. The square pieces of a frame are connected to each their area of the picture frame, as shown in the illustration below.
You do not need the entire picture frame, as it probably won't match the majority of photos you want to apply it to, therefore it is necessary that you slice the frame into pieces and let Visualizer Photo FX do all the challenging work of solving the puzzle.
Once you have designed a frame, start by making a selection of the area you want to save. Make a square selection, crop the image and save your first piece of the puzzle. If you are using PS to design your picture frame, go back in the history panel, to the point where you made your selection. Drag your selection to a new area, crop again and save again, but this time as a new file name. Use the yellow areas as guide lines, as shown in the illustration above, to help you cut/crop the right areas.
Keep repeating this procedure until you have successfully sliced your picture frame into 8 square pieces, which all represent their own area of the picture frame. In the illustration below you can see what the picture frame looks like once it has been sliced into 8 pieces.
Saving the jpg files.
A great tip for saving each piece of a picture frame, is to name the file what it actually represents. Let me show you what I mean.
your_design_name_l_t_c.jpg
You are probably wondering what the LTC stands for, and this is where the importance of naming the piece for what it really represents comes into action. L_T_C stands for Left Top Corner, where L_B_C would stand for Left Bottom Corner. It is not required that you name the files like this, however, when you need to create the plugin, it will make life easier for you, as you will learn in the next step of this tutorial.
Building the plugin.
Use any text editor of your choice to build your plugin. I recommend Notepad as it is easy to use and comes with any Windows platform. To access Notepad, click Start in Windows, select All Programs and then locate Accessories. Click on Notepad and let's start building the Picture Frame Plugin.
First let me show you what the script looks like.
//Visualizer Photo FX, Dark Wooden Picture Frame
//Developer: Visualizer Image Group
//Developed for v.1.51 and later - Edit file names only
[pictureFrame]
top_left_corner = frame_brown_l_t_c.jpg
top_right_corner = frame_brown_r_t_c.jpg
lower_left_corner = frame_brown_l_b_c.jpg
lower_right_corner = frame_brown_r_b_c.jpg
left_frame = frame_brown_l.jpg
right_frame = frame_brown_r.jpg
top_frame = frame_brown_t.jpg
lower_frame = frame_brown_b.jpg
As you can see there's really nothing fancy to it, and the script is pretty straight forward. Notice the filenames and how they are named, and notice each attribute that calls for the filename. The files are named to make it easier to add the files to the right attribute. In case you may wonder what the attributes are, those are the names aligned on your left.
Start coding the script by entering the filename for the right attribute. Once you are done, go to the file menu in the Notepad editor and select Save as. Locate the folder where you saved your JPG pieces and save the file using any name of your choise. Before you save your plugin, notice in the illustration below how I added the extension .fra - you should do the same, and also make sure that you have selected All files from the Save as type option.
That's it! You are done and you can now test your own Picture Frame by right clicking on a photo inside Visualizer Photo FX and select Add picture frame from the menu. Click on Load picture frame from file, and locate the plugin file you just saved. If you have followed the steps correctly in this tutorial, you should see your new picture frame be added to the photo.
Have fun! |
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Submitted by:
BevB
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