Back from babyland (my girlfriend gave birth last monday), I gotta say it’s been a pretty busy week with little to no sleep! I’m getting back on track a little at a time, gotta say that a first baby isn’t an easy task but it’s totally worth it!
Anyway, let’s start the week with a Fireworks tutorial on how to create a curled photo effect.
You can use Macromedia Fireworks MX, Fireworks 8 or Adobe Fireworks CS3. For this tutorial, I’ll be using this photo:
You can download the original photo for this tutorial here.
Open the picture with Fireworks and drag a vertical guide onto the canvas. Using the skew tool 
distort the image like this (click to enlarge):
From the main menu, click on “Modify => Canvas => Fit Canvas” to adjust the canvas to the distorted picture’s size. Using the rectangle tool, draw a rectangle over the picture. Make sure the newly created rectangle is selected and click on “Modify => Ungroup” from the main menu.
Select the subselection tool 
and drag the corner points of the rectangle to match the distorded photo’s shape.
Use the pen tool 
to add a couple of curve points to the rectangle, one at the top and one at the bottom:
Using the subselection tool, drag the top curve point downward and do the same thing with the bottom one too.
Still using the subselection tool, modify both curve points’ radius.
Select the selection tool and move the vertical guide over the curve points.
Select both the distorted rectangle and the distorded picture using the selection tool while holding the shift key. Click on “Modify => Mask => Group as mask”.
We now need to create a border for our masked photo. From the layer panel, select the rectangle from the masked photo item:
Click on “Edit => Copy” and then “Edit => Paste”.
We’ll need another copy of the vector shape. Click on “Edit => Repeat paste”.
We’ll need to punch the top shape through the bottom one. Select the top shape and click on “Modify => Transform => Numeric Transform”. Select “Scale” from the combo box and set the size to 85%.
Select both shapes by using the selection tool while holding the shift key. Click on “Modify => Combine Paths => Punch”.
Our photo now has a nice white border! It may not be totally adjusted so use the subselection tool to modify the interior path. When you’re done, select both the masked photo and it’s border and click on “Modify => Group”. Select the grouped items and add a drop shadow effect.
Click on “Modify => Canvas => Fit Canvas”. Select the scale tool 
and rotate the object by clicking and dragging outside the selection area.
Click on “Modify => Canvas => Fit Canvas” once again. You can use the subselection tool if you need to tweak the border any more.
Here’s what the final result (for part 1) should look like (I’ve added a grey background so you can see the border better):
Stay tuned for part 2 of this tutorial where we’ll add a reflective sheen to the photo and we’ll tweak the drop shadow a little bit.
You can download the source image for this Fireworks tutorial here.
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