Sand and Sea Incredimail Letter

PSP X

*NOTE*

Sometimes the links for filters change, it's difficult (and a lot of work) to
keep changing them on individual pages, so I have created a page with
links to filters and programs that I have used in my tutorials.
That way it is easier for me, because when there are changes I will
only have one page to update and hopefully better for you, because I'm
less likely to miss a page out when doing the updates :)

You will find links to filters/programs used in this tutorial Here
the link will open in a new window

The image I have used is ©Arantza Sestyao, www.sqpinc.com
available from www.creativeimagelicensing.com

Filters and programs used in this tutorial :-
Paint Shop Pro
Incredimail Letter Creator
You will also need to use Incredimail

some images have been made smaller to shorten file size

Step 1.
You should have your framed image from page 1 of the tutorial
still open in PSP. At the moment it is rather large for creating
a letter, so before we start on the side panels, we'll resize it.

The size you use is largely a matter of personal taste. I resized
mine so that the height was 450 pixels Resample using bicubic.
Feel free to make your image smaller (or larger) if you wish

Go to File...Export...JPG Optimizer...
I usually use a compression value somewhere between 10 and 20,
you can vary it, higher values will give a lower file size, but
the quality starts to deteriorate, lower values give better quality,
but higher file sizes. It's a case of striking a balance that suits
you. You don't want your letter to be too heavy, but it's a shame
to ruin a beautiful peice of work by compressing too much.

Give it any name you want, I called mine 'sand-sea-header
You can save your jpg in any folder that you want, as long as you
remember where to find it when you create your letter. I created a
folder for all my incredimail letters, inside that I make individual
folders for named each letter, I put my images in these so I know
where to find them (I wasn't always so organised lol)

Step 2.
For this tutorial we will create a symmetrical
side panel, for both sides of the framed image.

Activate your Selection Tool
Selection type=Rectangle
Mode=Replace
Feather=0
Anti-alias=unticked
Starting at the top left corner of your framed image drag the selection
so that the right side reaches about halfway across the vertical line of
gold dashes at the left of the image and right the way to the bottom,
see the screenshot below

Go to Edit...Copy...
You can minimise or close the image now.
Go to Edit...Past As New Image...

Go to Image...Canvas Size...
Look at the Original Dimensions at the top of the dialog box
We want to keep the height exactly the same as the original,
so put that figure in as the height in the New Dimensions section

We want the new width to be double the original figure (a bit
of easy math here, multiply the original width by 2 and put that
figure in for the new width (mine was 54, so I made it 108)

In the Placement section select the center left box
(actually in this case as we are not changing the height,
any of the 3 left boxes would do just as well)

Your image should look like this

Step 3.
Go to Image...Duplicate...
then Image...Mirror....
and finally Layers...Merge...Merge all...

Your side panel should now looks something like this

Export it as a jpg and save in the same folder as
your header. I called mine 'sand-sea-side'

Step 4.
Before we finish and go into Letter Creator, lets make a
simple matching button to go in the Footer of your letter

Open a new Image 175 x 50
Flood fill with your background colour
Go to Selections...Select All...
Selections...Modify...Select Selection Borders...
Inside
Anti-alias=unticked
Border Width=5
Flood fill the selected border with the speckle goldfill patten. Go to Effects...3D Effects...Drop Shadow
Horizontal and Vertical offsets=1
Opacity=75
Blur=5
Repeat the Drop Shadow, but change the
Horizontal and Vertical offsets to minus 1
Deselect

Activate the Text Tool
Use a font of your choice
The size will depend on the font you use
Alignment=Center
Create as Vector
On the palette change the background to the colour that you
want to use for your text (I used the speckle goldfill pattern)
Make the foreground transparent

Click the cente of the button image and Type
'Letter by' or 'Created by' and your name
(not mine I only wrote the tutorial, this is your creation)
When you are happy with the size and position of your text
Go to Layers...Convert to Raster Layer
Add a drop shadow with the same settings previously used

Export as a jpg I called mine 'sand-sea-button'
Now that all you images are saved as jpgs you can
close them all. You can also close or minimise PSP.

There are several ways you can use these images in
letter creator, for this tutorial we will have the main
image at the top, with a panel each side of it, a plain
coloured background and your button at the bottom

Step 5.
Open Letter Creator

First select the Header tab

In the Header and Content section click on the 'image' icon

Use the navigation box to got to the folder that
you saved your jpgs in and open your side image,
you will see it appear in the large preview window

Hit the spacebar on your keyboard 5 times. Now click
the 'image' icon again and this time open your header
(main) image, hit the spacebar 5 times. Click the 'image'
icon once more and open the side image again

You should now have your main image with a side panel
each side showing in the large preview window.

To make sure the images are centred in the header section
Click the Text alignment dropdown list and choose center

Step 6.
Now that the header is in place we will sort out the
background and text colours, so open the 'Body' tab

In the Background section you can either click the 'color'
icon and choose your colour from the palette, or if you
want to use a colour from you header images click the
'Sample' icon and use the 'dropper' to choose a colour
from your image in the preview window
I used the 'Sample' method and chose black from my image

In the Text section you can choose your text and link
colours in the same way. I chose light grey shades
You can also choose your font and font size, you can see
how it will look in your letter, from the preview window.

I left the Margins at the default settings

Step 7.
Open the Footer tab next

In the section 'Footer Content and Layout' click the 'image' icon
and open your button image. To centre it choose the center alignment
in the same way as we did for the Headers.

Below your button you can add any copyright information for images
that you have used and any other credits that are appropriate.
If you have followed a tutorial to create your letter, it is a
courtesy to include a link to the tutorial, highlight the text
that you want to turn into a link, click on the 'Link' icon and
put the url into to box provided to add a hyperlink

Step 8.
For this tutorial we are not using the Left, Right,
or 3D tabs, so open the 'Finish' tab.

Give your letter a name, the collection name is where Incredimail
will save your letter, you can call it whater you like, you can
even choose a category for your letter, you might want to keep
similar themes together

Click on the 'Save Project' button and save in the same folder as
your images, if you want to make changes later, you will be able
to open the project and change images, fonts, colours etc

When you have finished, click the 'Add to Incredimail button
and your letter will be added to Incredimail under the name and
category etc that you have chosen

To see my other tutorials click Here

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial.
Thankyou Kevin for testing this tutorial

To see my other tutorials click Here

If you wish to contact me you can find an email address to use included on my Site Map