Eye of Xero

I own the intellectual copyright for the written tutorial.  What you make is yours, but please do not take my tutorial.  Share only my link.

This tutorial is intended for a beginner to learn about using plugins.  If you have any questions, please feel free to email me.

To do this tutorial you will also need Photoshop CS - CS3.  You may download a free trial at Adobe.

Remember to save as a .psd file often!

Download Xero Plugins, Sets 3 & 4, and install.

1.  Choose a photo that you want to use.  Image > Duplicate.  Close the original.

2.  Resize the photo so that the biggest side is no bigger than 400 px.  Image > Resize.

3.  Filter > Xero > Duochrome.  Set the highlight to a bright/light color from your photo, set the Shadows to a dark/medium color from your photo.  Tone = 0 for both, preserve = 127, overall strength = 127, gradient type = Linear, breakpoint = 134, transition = 12.  Click ok.

4.  Filter > Xero > Fritillary.  Granularity = 5, aggression = 73, tesselation = 23, variation = 27

5.  Set the foreground color = black.

6.  Filter > Xero > Soft Vignette  Gradient Shape = elliptical, effect type = foreground color, pattern type = solid, repeats = 3, width = 0, height = 0, strength = 200

7.  If necessary:  Layers > Merge Flatten.  If this is greyed out, then your photograph was already in the right format.

8.  Image > canvas size.  Add 20 to the width and the height, canvas extension color = black.  this will put a 10-pixel border all the way around.

9.  Open up the tube (image extraction that you want to use).  Select > Select All.  Edit > Copy

10.  Click back on your image.  Edit > Paste.  With the mover tool, move the tube to one side, so that part of it runs off the edge. 

11.  In the Layer Palette, click on the bottom layer.  With the magic wand, tolerance = 0, click on the black border.

12.  In the Layer Palette, click on the top layer, and then press the DELETE key (this deletes the part of the tube that covers the black border)

13.  Optional:  I added a corner decoration, by copying the fairies wings and then pasting it into the opposite corner.

14.  Layer > Merge Flatten.

15.  Save as a JPEG.  File > Save As

 Please do not remove this tutorial from my site.  Share my url.