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BEVELED EDGE-BLENDER 
a plugin filter for Adobe Photoshop 3.0 (Windows)
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Copyright (c) 1996 -- Truman Brown, CIS 71477,221
All Rights Reserved


WELCOME
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Thank you for trying out the Beveled Edge-blender filter for Photoshop!

This filter is a plug (pardon the pun) for TruFilters - a set of useful and
unique filters coded using Filter Factory.  Samples of effects created with 
the TruFilters plugins can be found in the TRUFILTR.JPG file included in this 
archive.  Read the TRUFILTR.TXT document or the JPG comment block for 
descriptions of the filters and information about ordering them.  If you like 
what you see and want a copy, great! -- otherwise please enjoy your free copy 
of the Beveled Edge-blender filter.


DESCRIPTION
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The Beveled Edge-blender is a tool for aiding in the creation of seamless 
tiles.  If you have no idea what a seamless tile is, then you probably won't 
have much use for this filter.  If, on the other hand, you yearn to create 
your own seamless tiles for that cool Web page background you've been working 
on or need a quick imagemap to wrap around your computer graphics model, then 
this filter will make life a lot easier for you.


FUNCTION
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Several methods exist for creating seamless tiles - the quickest, cleanest, 
and easiest being some form of reflecting a source image.  The TruFilters
package contains several filters that do just that and more.  If you're really
into seamless tiles, I highly recommend you get a copy (hint hint).

The Beveled Edge-blender takes a slightly different approach however.  Instead 
of simply reflecting some portion of a source image, it gently fades the 
mirror-image of the opposing sides of a selection into the original image,
thus creating the illusion of an overlap.  When tiled, the edges softly 
"blend" out and into each other.  Please accept my apologies if this 
description is unclear.  Once you see the filter in action, you'll understand.


DISCLAIMERS
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- Unfortunately, the current version of Filter Factory has several limitations
  that impact upon the potential and performance of the filters it generates.
  Limited memory and a single-pass methodology are the reasons why this
  particular filter uses beveling to implement the blending effect.  A more 
  verbose and accurate approach would require two passes, one for the 
  horizontal blend and one for the vertical.  As such, you may notice a 
  somewhat sharp contrast along the bevels, depending upon the particular 
  source image you're working on.  Fear not tho, I'll describe a simple method 
  of cleaning up this artifact later.

- This filter has only been tested on systems with 16 megs of RAM or more.


INSTALLATION
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Like most Photoshop filters, installation is quick and easy.  Simply place a 
copy of the BEVEDGE.8BF file in your PLUGINS subdirectory.  This is usually 
\PHOTOSHP\PLUGINS.

That's all there is to it.  The next time you run Photoshop, the filter will 
automatically appear in the main FILTER menu under the TRUFILTER submenu.


CONTROLS
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When you select the Beveled Edge-blender filter, a dialog box will appear
containing a reduced copy of your image selection and a single slider control.

The slider adjusts the depth of the bevel-effect.  It has a value range of 
0-255 which, once again, is a limitation imposed by Filter Factory.  As
implemented in this filter, 0 represents no beveling and 255 represents 
complete beveling.  Complete beveling pulls the inside edge of the bevel to 
the absolute center of the image.  The default slider setting is 64 which 
represents approximately one quarter of image.


HINTS
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- Results vary, depending upon the particular source image you're using.  In
  most cases, the effect works best on images that already have the same
  general hue, lightness, and contrast along the image edges.  Examples 
  include facial close-ups and foliage.

- Depending upon the image and the beveling depth you've selected, the 
  contrast along the bevel may appear too obvious.  This will create a 
  "diamond" effect when the image is tiled.  Sometimes this will be desirable 
  and look extremely cool.  Sometimes it won't.  Reducing the bevel depth 
  will often minimize the contrast at the expense of lowering the overlap 
  effect.

- Here's a manual method I use to clean up the contrast:
  
  After executing the filter, select the entire affected image and choose 
  EDIT, DEFINE PATTERN.  This places the tile in Photoshop's pattern buffer.

  Then choose FILE, NEW and create a new file twice the size of the original 
  tile (I'm assuming your tile is small or you have no memory limitations).
  
  Choose EDIT once again, and FILL the new image with the pattern (this is 
  also a quick way to see what your tile will look like when tiled).

  Now go in and manually edit the contrasting bevel in the **centermost** 
  region of the new image.  I recommend using either the blending tool or the 
  rubber stamp (cloning) tool.
  
  Once you've corrected the contrast artifact to your satisfaction, set the
  rectangle selector tool to FIXED SIZE and enter the dimensions of the origin
  tile.  Click the selector near the upper corner of the centermost region 
  you've just edited and choose EDIT, DEFINE PATTERN again.  Since the image
  is already tiled, any section you define as a pattern will work similar
  to the originally defined pattern.

  Deselect the rectangle, choose EDIT, FILL and refill the new image with the 
  corrected pattern.  If your editing was acceptable, you'll now have a 
  fantasticly perfect seamless tile.  If not, well, try again!

  Finally, fill a new image with a single instance of the pattern, save it 
  to a file, and get started on another interesting tile.


FINAL WORD
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Enjoy.


COPYRIGHTS
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Photoshop and Filter Factory are registered trademarks of Adobe, Inc.
TruFilters is copyrighted by Truman Brown, CIS 71477,221.