About a month after I originally published this tutorial, I changed my tutorial writing style. Instead of including paths for effects and detailed how-to's for techniques, I now write the entire tutorial as more of a narrative. This format was overwhelmingly welcomed by all users, and all my tutorials have been written in this style since then. Therefore, in this PSP8 version, I will use the new style as well. For those veterans among you, this is a welcome relief! And for those less familiar with PSP, the "Glossary" contains all the details omitted in the tutorial! If you need a little extra help, check the Glossary section! It's on a separate page, so print it if you like, and follow along. To view the Glossary, just click on the button below - the Glossary will open in a new window.
STEP 1
Before you start, go to the folder where you placed the Darrians Frames font, open that font, and minimize. This font will now be available to you within PSP.
Open the image you have chosen to frame. Resize to 250 pixels on the longest side.
Set the Background Material style to Pattern using the image you are framing as the pattern, with Angle = 45 and Scale = 50. Set the Foreground Material to transparent (null).
STEP 2
Add a Symmetric 2-pixel black border to the image.
Select the border, invert the selection, and apply a Cutout effect with the following settings:
Vertical offset (0),
Horizontal offset (0),
Shadow color (black),
Opacity (89),
Blur (43.7)
Deselect and SAVE!
STEP 3
Add a Symmetric 20-pixel white border.
Select this border and FLOOD FILL 
with the background pattern.
Apply the Brush Strokes effect using the Small thin oil preset. Just in case you don't have this preset, here are the settings:
Softness (20), Bristles (256), Width (4), Opacity (50),
Length (10), Density (25), Angle (102), Color (black)
Deselect and SAVE!
STEP 4
Add a Symmetric 20-pixel black border, select the border, invert the selection, and apply the same Cutout as in Step 2, except change the Blur to 6.3.
Here's our image so far:
Deselect and SAVE.
STEP 5
Add a Symmetric 4-pixel white border. Select this border, FLOOD FILL with the background pattern, and apply the same Brush Strokes effect as in Step 3 above.
Apply an Inner Bevel effect using the Round preset distributed with Paint Shop Pro.
Deselect and SAVE!
STEP 6
In this step, we are going to use a frame from the Darrians Frames font to decorate the brush strokes frame you have been creating. The frames in this font are taller than they are wide, so to prevent excessive distortion, if your image is wider than it is tall, it would be a good idea to rotate it 90 degrees to the right before continuing. Just be sure All layers is checked if you do this.
Add a new vector layer. Activate the TEXT tool 
, click on the Presets drop-down arrow (red arrow in image below), click the Reset to default curved arrow button (blue arrow in image below):
and then use the following settings:
Create as: (Vector),
Font (Darrians Frames),
Size (200),
Anti-alias (checked),
Alignment: (Align Center),
Font Style (Bold)
Click near the bottom of your image and type a lower case "f" in the Text Entry box.
We are creating this "frame" as a vector object so we can manipulate it, stretching it to fit the image. To make the stretching of the decorative frame easier, we're going to need a little extra "room", so click on the Maximize button in the top right hand corner of your image to enlarge the image window to fill the screen:
You should have the cross-hatched pattern surrounding your image - here is a cutaway version of what things look like now:
Move your cursor over the middle handle (circled in green) of the vector selection box on the frame - when it turns into the MOVE tool 
, hold down the left mouse button and drag the frame into the center of your image. This will make the stretching easier.
This frame is just a little "crooked", but you can straighten it up really easily! To do this, hold your SHIFT key down and move your cursor over the middle control handle on the top of the vector selection box - when your cursor turns into a 2-headed arrow with a small parallelogram above it, just drag the handle slightly to the right to straighten out the frame!
Move your cursor over the lower right corner control handle (circled in red below) - when it turns into the MOVE tool, drag the frame down and towards the right, towards the corner. Do the same for the upper left corner control handle, dragging it up and to the left.
If your frame still shows some black around the edges, drag the control handles on the sides of the selection box (shown in light blue) outwards:
When you are done, your image should look something like this:
TIP: If at any time during the above process, you lose the vector selection box surrounding your decorative frame, just activate the OBJECT SELECTOR tool 
and click on your image.
When you are satisfied with the placement of the decorative frame, convert this layer to raster.
SAVE!
STEP 7
We're on the home stretch now!
To restore the image to its previous non-maximized position, click on the restore button in the top right corner of the image:
If you rotated your image to apply the decorative frame, it's time to rotate it back! Just remember that if you rotated it "right" before, you'll need to rotate it "left" now!
Apply a Drop Shadow to your decorative frame layer using the following settings:
Vertical offset (4),
Horizontal offset (4),
Opacity (79),
Blur (13.6),
Shadow color (black)
Reapply the Drop Shadow, changing both offsets to negative 4 (-4).
Now all you need to do is watermark, merge all layers, save, and that's it!
Don't forget to sharpen your image if you resize it at this point - I used Unsharp Mask, with Radius = 2.00, Strength = 50, and Clipping = 5!
Here's another frame using Paula Vaughan's "Love Letters":
Hope you have enjoyed this tutorial as much as I did creating it!
If you have any problems, comments, or questions, please do not hesitate to Email me.
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