Sand-Blasted Glass Panel


This tutorial was written for PhotoImpact 8, but should work in lower versions as well.
Easy enough for beginners.
The technique is an adaptation of a PSP tutorial found at Pati's PSP Tutorials

You will need:

  • A mask for the embossed image. You can use this one or make your own. Marlene's Graphics has an excellent tutorial for creating your own masks from a photo or drawing. Botanical prints work beautifully. Use images with mostly light colors, as those with large dark areas don't work well with this technique.
  • EmbossWorks plug-in from Cybia (freeware). Download the .zip file and unzip to your Plug-Ins folder.
  1. Open your grey-scale mask image in PhotoImpact.
  2. Open a second new image the same size or slightly larger, with a white or transparent background. I've used 255x400 pixels for this example.
  3. Create your glass panel by pressing CRTL+A, then Edit>Trace>Selection Marquee, choose "3D Chisel" Mode. Choose any transparent glass preset from the Material Attribute gallery; set the Border to 19. I've chosen G18 for this example.
  4. Deselect the glass panel object.
  1. Import the selection from your mask image ("Selection>Import Selection..."). A black and blue selection marquee should appear in your image.
  2. Select the glass panel object in the Layer Manager.
  3. Click on "Selection>Convert to Object" to convert the selection to object. The image from the mask should show up in a new layer, slightly darker in color than the glass panel. This is your "Etching" layer. Use the arrow keys to center it on the glass panel.
  1. Click on "Effects>EmbossWorks>Ice White", set all settings to "255". Nothing will show up in the preview windows--don't panic! This is OK.
  1. Duplicate etching layer twice (total of 3 etching layers).
  2. Right click on top etching layer in the Layer Manager of your Access Panel. Click "Arrange>Send to back".
  3. Right click the bottom etching layer, then click "Shadow..." and click the check mark to apply a black shadow with default settings.
  4. Apply shadow to the top etching layer, as in step 11.
  5. Make a frame by duplicating the glass panel layer, then selecting a metallic preset for the finish. Choose "3D Pipe" and set the Border to 2.
By changing the material of the glass layer and the background, you can change the appearance of your etched panel:
 
 

Here's your award for completing the tutorial!


Created 4/4/04 by R. Hickman
Contents Copyright 2003-2004 by R. Hickman