Tutorial 14

More PSP Effects

In this tutorial you will use a Gradient, Mask, Texture Effects and brushes. All the effects can be found within your program.

Supplies needed:-

PSP - I am using PSPXI but this will work in most versions.

PSP Tube - The one I used is by Steve Baier,www.scbartworks.com, and is licensed through Up Your Art . You may not use his images without the appropriate license. Licenses and tubes can be obtained at UYA .

Mask - Gabeez Mask 13 - Here Open the full image , then right click and use the Save As option, saving the mask to the masks folder you have created for your masks. Please do not change the file name of the mask.

Brushes of choice - I used some star swirls by Agi which can be downloaded from her Deviant Art Web site Here . Unzip these and Import them to Paint Shop Pro. If you are not sure how to do this, the tutorial Here will guide you through it.

Font of choice. I used Monika available Here.

Open your psp image/tube and font and minimise until you need them. You are now ready to start making your tag. Remember to save your work often so that if your program or pc crashes you do not have to start from the beginning again. The tutorial appears to be quite long, but that is mainly because I have included a lot of screen shots to help you.

Open a new image 500 x 500 pixels, 72 dpi Resolution:-

Locate your Flood Fill Too in your left hand tool bar:-

Now set your Material Palette so that the Foreground Colour is white:-

Flood fill your image white, then Add a new Raster Layer:-

For this layer we are going to use a gradient made from a dark and light colour from your tube. In my tag I used #C26B2F as my Foreground Colour. and #DC9D71 as my Background Colour. Click on the Gradient Box on the drop down on your Foreground Colour.

Locate the Foreground/background Gradient and set it with the following settings:-

Radial Gradient, arrowed in the above screen shot, with the angle set to 0 and the repeats set to 8, Invert ticked. Click on OK and flood fill your Raster 2 Layer with this gradient.

Now go to Layers - Load/Save Mask:-

Click on Load Mask from Disk, and on the drop down menu locate your Gabeez Mask 13:-

Makes sure that the boxes arrowed in the screen shot are ticked, Fit to Layer, Source Luminance and Invert Transparency should all be ticked.

Your layers palette should now look like this:-

Right click into the Mask layer, and click on Merge Group:-

Rename this layer Mask, and then right click and duplicate it:-

X out the duplicate layer and make sure that your original mask layer is highlighted in the layers palette, making it the active layer:

We are going to add some effects to this layer. First go to Adjust and find Blur/Gaussian Blur:-

Apply the Gaussian Blur with a Radius Setting of 20.00:-

Now go to Effects - Texture Effects- Blinds:-

Apply onto the Gaussian Blur layer with the following settings:-

Width 2, Opacity 30, Colour White, and both Horizontal and Light Boxes ticked. Reduce the Opacity of this layer to around 50:-

Now make your Copy of mask active, and go to Effects - Texture - Texture:-

On the drop down box on the left hand side, locate the Hatch Fine Texture:-

Apply this with the following settings:-

Size 25%, Smoothness 8, Depth 1, Ambience 0, Shininess 0, Colour White, Angle 315, Intensity 50, Elevation 30. Now add a drop shadow to this layer using the following settings:-

OK, so far so good. We've not created a background for our tag. Now open your tube and copy the tube layer. Paste as a New Layer onto your image. Position the tube so that it sits nicely in the circle . Allow some of the tube to be above the circle. You may need to resize your tube , depending on the tube you have chosen. Don't worry if some of the tube overhangs at the bottom, we are going to get rid of that in a moment.

Rename this layer Tube, and then duplicate it. X out the duplicate layer, and make sure you have the original layer active. Now find your Freehand Selection Tool:-

Make sure the settings for this tool, which can be found in the bar above your workspace are as follows:-

Reduce the opacity of your tube layer so that you can see the mask layer beneath it. Now carefully draw a selection so that the area of the tube below the circle is enclosed:-

The marching ants in the above shot show the selection I made on my tag. When you get to the point where the start and finish of your selection meet, right click and the selection will show. Now hit delete on the tube layer, and also on the duplicate tube layer. The excess tube will now have gone. Lift the opacity of the layer you reduced back to 100.

Now , making sure that your original tube layer is active, got to Effects - Distortion Effects - Wind:-

Apply this effect using the following settings:-

Wind from left, Wind Strength 50. Now repeat the effect changing the wind direction to right. Now change the blend mode for this layer to Hard Light:-

Open your duplicate tube layer and add the following drop shadow:-

Vertical -2, Horizontal 2, Opacity 80, Blur 4, Colour the same as you used for Mask Drop Shadow.

If you think your mask layer need a little something else to make it look more interesting, adding a few brushes can help.

Make your copy mask layer active and then add a new raster layer. Locate your brush tool:-

and find a brush you like from the drop down menu:-

I used a slightly darker shade than my original Foreground Colour for my brushes, then changed the blend mode to burn:-

X out the white background layer, then right click into any of the other layers, and Merge Visible :-

Before adding text and copyright layers to this tag, we are going to resize it. Keep the background layer hidden and go to Image - Resize:-

Resize by 90% , Bicubic, making sure that Resize all Layers is unchecked, as above.

Now let's add some text.

Locate your text tool and Font of choice:-

I used Monika as my font with the following settings and colours:-

My font colours are the original colours I used to make my gradient, but I clicked the little arrows to reverse the colours:-

Apply your text,making sure you have Vector ticked in the settings,and once happy with it's size and vertical position on your tag, go to Objects - Align - Horizontal Centre in Canvas:-

Almost there !!!!

Now add your copyright layer, license if applicable, and tagged by layers.

Let's get rid of any excess white that you have on your tag. You should still have the white background layer hidden. Make any of the other layers active, then locate the crop tool:-

Now look on your top toolbars, and locate the Snap Crop Rectangle to:-

Hover over the boxes and choose Merged Opaque, a box will appear on your image:-

Click on Apply as in the above screen shot.

Now open your background layer. You should now have an image looking something like this:-

All that remains is to save your tag. First go to File - Save As:-

and save the layered image as a psp file in the folder you wish to keep your psp images:-

Then go to Layers - Merge - Merge All Flatten:-

Now export your image as a jpeg:-

Well done, you have made a tag I hope you can be proud of.

If you have any queries on this tutorial , please contact me. I would also love to see your results.

This Tutorial was written in July 2010 by Helen Peachey, and the concept of the tutorial is copyrighted.
Please feel free to LINK to the tutorial and/or print it out for your personal use,
but please do not copy it in any way to put online, pass out or re-write without permission.
The image you create using this tutorial is for you to do what you wish except for monetary gains or for merchandising.
© Peachies Designs and Tutorials. Any Resemblance to another tutorial is purely coincidental.