This tutorial assumes you have a good working knowledge of PI, the location of the tools used and their functions, as tool locations and functions are not covered.

Learn to make frayed edges two different ways. The first method requires that you have Alien Skin's Eye Candy5: Textures* and the second method shows how to achieve a similar result using just PhotoImpact.

*A 30 day demo of EC can be downloaded at www.alienskin.com*

Start by opening the graphic you want to use. I suggest that you make a selection and drag the selection to a 500x500 or so canvas.Duplicate the selection and drag the dup to its own canvas to use later. Make sure you have plenty of edge around the graphic to get the end result. Do not merge with base image.

Go to Effects, Eye Candy5: Texture, Animal Fur. When the dialog box opens, first choose the Pattern tab and under Pattern type, choose Original Image. At the bottom, check Draw Outside Selection.

Now choose the Hairs tab and use these settings, but feel free to experiment with different ones.

Click OK and your image should look something like this:

R/C and Merge all. Use the Magic Wand tool to select the white area, then R/C, Invert.

Under Selection, choose Expand/Shrink and when the dialog box opens, shrink by 1 pixel.

R/C, Convert to object and drag to it's own canvas.

Now drag the duplicate image to this canvas and resize as needed.

When you are satisfied with the results, R/C, Select all objects and Merge as single object.

And there is your frayed edge. Decorate as desired. Here I used the Line and Arrow tool to make stitches.

To get a similar effect with just PI's tools, follow the first step to get your image and duplicate it. Back to the original image, R/C and Merge all.

Go to Effects, Distort, Blast.

Choose the middle window or go to Options and use the To the right. Click OK.

Repeat, using the To the left.

Your image should look like this:

Now let's move the edge around. R/C, Merge all. Go to Effects, Distort, Warp with Grid.

In the dialog box, choose Fine grid, then move the far right and far left nodes to different positions:

Keep moving the nodes till you get the effect you like, click OK, then use the Magic wand again and follow the steps as above to select, shrink and convert to object.

(Optional steps--If you want to fray the top and bottom too, use the Transform tool to flip the merged image 90 degrees and repeat the Blast steps, then flip the image back to the original position. Another optional step is to use the Button Designer, bevel 1 to give your fray a 3D look.)

Drag the dup image to the active one and finish as outlined before.

Try this effect on several images and adjust the settings for different looks.

Have Fun!