Framing your images gives them a very nice finished look. A mat can be defined as being a border around your picture used to provide contrast between the picture and the frame.

You can use any image, just make sure colors are increased to 16 million. You also will need the preset frame called Photo Edge 09. If you do not have that in your frame dropdown list, it was provided on the PSP7 installation CD or you can download it HERE.

Open your image in PSP. Click on Image/Picture Frame/Photo Edge 09. Click Next and choose Frame outside of the image then Finish. You should now have a white torn-edged matting around your image. On your layer palette, you will notice that this matting is on its own layer which is called Picture Frame.

Make sure that the Picture Frame layer is highlighted like you see above, then click on Selections/Select All. Then click on your selections tool and left-click once on the white part of the layer. Now you should just have the white matting selected.

Select a foreground color from your image by clicking on your dropper tool and left-clicking on your image. This color will will be used for the color of your mat. Flood fill the selected matting with your foreground color and leave selected.

Click on Effects/Texture Effects/Texture. I used Texture 9, construction paper.bmp with the settings below. Still leave the mat selected.

Click on Effects/3D Effects/Drop Shadow. vertical = 3, horizontal = -3; opacity 100, blur 2.2. Then repeat the drop shadow using vertical=-3, horizontal=3; same settings for opacity and blur. Click on Selections/Select None. Right-click on your Picture Frame layer on your layer palette and merge/merge all (flatten). You should have something like this.

Page 2