Barn Door Tutorial
A totally useless exercise that is fun.
by Invisabull
Supplied with this instruction are 4 boards that I have pre-made for your convenience. (see download button below) The process of making the boards should be understood though. They were taken from a photo (see banner above) and like a carpenter would do, they were all equally sized with Resize in PSP6, then a black border was applied to the length of the board, top and bottom, with a value of 1. The boards were purposely made longer than the object to be created. You will understand the reason for this near the end of the process.
With the boards opened in PSP, create a New Image with the values pictured below.
Now configure the Flood Fill tool as shown below.
Then fill the New Image with Image1
Next create a border, top and bottom of the board; value of 45. Notice you must unselect Symmetric and set left and right at 0.
Then configure Magic Wand, select top panel, then fill with Image 2. Fill bottom panel with Image 3.
Then add two more border panels, top and bottom. Border selection is defaulted to previous selection. Then fill the top panel with Image 4. Because we will limit this door to 5 boards, we need one more board than supplied. The boards are longer, so you can use the other end of Image 4. This prevents having look alike boards in our door. This method can be used to create more than a 5 board door. The sequence can be varied as described in this instruction. The object is to have each board look different. So make Image 4 active then select Image/Mirror. At this point you must return to the Flood Fill pattern selection and reselect Image 4. An important distinction is to be noted here. Mirroring the original image, flips the whole board. To mirror the restricted filled area only, mirrors that smaller image. Now you should have a 5 board image, as pictured below.
Now rotate the results 90 degrees to the right.
At this point pick any one of the four boards you desire, copy, reselect Image 5 and paste as a New Selection. Notice you can position this board near the top and move it right or left to please your artistic taste. Just eyeball where the board goes. Perfection is not a requirement here. Barn door builders go for function not esthetics, so it gives authenticity to be less than symmetrically perfect. While this board is still selected, go to Image/Effects/Drop Shadow. See settings below. Apply drop shadow.
Repeat the process for the bottom board, then Control D to fix image.
Now we want to put on the cross-brace. We need to rotate the whole image to the right. The amount of degrees is dependant on many factors. It will vary with the number of boards in the door and how far apart the brace boards are located. The value I used for this tutorial is 55 degrees. The eyeball is your most important tool.
Now for the only slightly difficult part of this process. Select the Lasso tool, Point to Point, Feather 0, Antialias on. Starting at the top left corner, where the bottom brace meets the edge of the door panel, draw a line to the top brace. Draw the line so it is perfectly straight without being jagged. See wrong and right picture below. When you arrive back at the bottom brace and have found your position, just double click and it will complete the loop.
The above is not good. See how the bottom line is jagged.
The above is the way it should look.
While still selected, use the Flood Fill pattern to fill with the board of your choice. Then apply drop shadow as described previously.
Next, rotate the completed door back to the vertical position.
Rotation of the object has created a window larger than the image so use the Magic Wand, click on the white area, then Selection/Invert, copy and paste as a New Image.
The project is complete. You can mirror this image to have two matching doors. Finding a use for this door may be difficult, but methods learned here can be applied to other activities. Experiment, explore and have fun!
The image below is just whimsy.
Epilog: It occurred to me after completion of this that the supplied images are done in PSP6. If anyone needs them for PSP5, you can request and I will supply them. See email link below. Any questions about any of the above procedures can also be sent to the email link and I will respond. Enjoy and be happy!
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