Photo/Graphic Edges: A Fine Plug-In

   Auto F/X is so cool!
   One of the things anyone wants to do who is designing publications – either for print media or for electronic publication – is to get away from the mundane and do something different. You have to be careful about different, though, because (as some of the web pages which make it onto the late Mirsky's "Worst of the Web" attest) you can do too many different things and just end up with bizarre.
   In many cases, nothing is more mundane than a picture. I know, I know. You're doing a little thingie for the church and the pastor has invited his childhood friend who he went to seminary with to give the guest sermon. He really insists you use his friend's picture.
   Well, let's face it. Its a rectangular picture with one of those bland backgrounds and the pastor's buddy isn't exactly a threat to Sty Stallone. Its bland with a lower-case "b."
   But, thanks to Auto F/X we can jazz it up.
   What Auto F/X allows us to do is place all kinds of nifty borders around photographs. Here, as you can see, we put this rough border around the photograph of the visiting pastor and, when it prints, it will just sort

of makes the picture blend in to the text. No sharp lines, something a little "artsy" and no more boring picture.
  Auto F/X comes with several hundred different effects and there are a total of three packages. There are some absolutely dashing things here, and the really difficult decision – if you're on a budget – is which one(s) to order.
   The example to the left was done with an effect which was set to the outside of

the image. In addition, you can set an effect to the inside, too. We tried that on our pastor and got the example to the right.
   We used a different effect on the outside this time, and

a different one on the inside as well. We used another control from the program to blur the outside effect and kept the inside sharpened for a nice mixture of the two. Why, this even makes the pastor look interesting – and it certainly draws attention to the picture.
   Note that because we're designing this thingie for the church newsletter, we are using white to allow the paper color to blend into the picture (and the blurring with

these lines makes it look especially nice). But, suppose we were designing for the Web and were using a colored background on the page?
   No problem. Auto F/X allows us to assign any color we want to the background of the image or to select any color we wish for the edge of the inside effect. You might want to use the same color as the background for blending purposes, or set a complementary color to create an interesting contrast.
   Auto F/X also allows you to mirror the outside or inside effect, or both together, and to rotate the two effects, either separately or together. If you wanted those three long lines in our second example on the top of the image rather than the side, you could just rotate the outside effect 90 degrees. Both outside and inside
effects can also be scaled.
   And, perhaps needless to say with a program of this quality, you can preview whatever it is you do before you actually apply the effects.
   The result of all of this is that I was able to create literally hundreds of effects. With the full set, the possibilities are practically limitless.
   The second volume of effects includes geometric shapes while the third includes artistic edges. I wasn't too excited about the geometric edges package until I tried it out. It really does some excellent things. The third package has stuff like hearts and some very interesting shapes which sort of defy explaination.
   The bottom line: A truly excellent package which can spiff up your publications, your web sites and just about everything with a minimum of trouble.

   Link to Auto F/X Corporation's Web Site