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Thursday, March 29, 2012

Tutorial Writer’s Inc

Just a note to let all of you know that my tutorials are now protected by Tutorial Writer’s Inc. and you will need to follow closely my TOU for use of my tutorials on your shared sites.  Please look to the right and click on Terms of Use before you post, copy or translate any of my tutorials.  Thank you for your understanding!

Have a great day!

Rhonda

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Simple Satin Ruffled Ribbon

So in this tutorial we are going to talk about making a satin ribbon that you can use for any of your graphic design projects. It will work in PSP 8 and up and there are no plug ins required!

Tools you will need: Paint Shop Pro and a desire to learn!

Here we go!

For this tutorial we are going to make a ribbon that is long enough to be used in a gallon paint can design.

Step 1 – Open PSP and go to File/New and use the following settings:

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Step 2 – Click on your selection tool:

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Then click on the Custom Selection box on your toolbar:

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And use the following settings:

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Step 2 – Pick the flood fill tool and fill the selected area with the color you want.  For this tutorial I am going to use Blue.  And our image will now look like this:

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Go to Selections/Select None.

Step 3 – Go to Effects/Distortion Effects/Wave and use the following settings:

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Our image now appears as below:

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Step 4 – Go to Layers/New Raster Layer and then click OK.  Now select your paint brush tool:

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And use the following settings for your paint brush:

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Use the settings you see in the tool bar above and then make sure your Opacity is set to 100; Blend Mode is Normal and Continuous is checked.

Now change your foreground color in your materials pallet to black and make paint strokes on the “downside” of our curves. Our workspace will appear as below:

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It doesn’t need to be perfect.  Now staying on this layer; change your foreground color to white and paint between the black strokes.  Our image will appear as below:

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Again, it does not need to be perfect. 

Step 5 – With the painted layer as our active layer go to Adjust/Blur/Gaussian Blur and use the following settings:

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Click OK and our image will now appear as below:

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Now Double Click the layer that has your paint strokes on it and change the opacity to 60. See below:

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You can change this to 50 if you are working with a lighter color and want the shading to be slightly lighter than the current shading.

Step 6 – Click on the layer that contains the ribbon to make it the active layer.  Now go to Selections/Select All and then Selections/Float/  and then Selections/Defloat then go to Selections/Invert.

Make the painted layer your active layer by clicking on it and then simply press your Del key and then go to Selections/Select None.  This will eliminate the excess paint we got on our workspace earlier. And our image will now appear as below:

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Step 7 – Go to Layers/Merge/Merge Down.  Now we have one layer to work on.  Go to Effects/3D Effects/Drop Shadow and use the following settings:

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Again, you can play with this to your liking.

Now, you have a finished satin looking ribbon you can use on your projects.  If you want to make this into a border…..proceed to the next step.

Step 8 – Go to your selection tool and then click on the custom selection box and use the following settings:

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Our image will appear as below:

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Now, simply press your Del key and then go to Selections/None and you have a border.

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Now you can go to Edit/Copy and then Edit/Paste As A New Image and you will have saved file size by having an image that is only the size of our ribbon.  I would suggest that you convert this to grayscale for future use. To do so: go to Image/Grayscale and then Image/Increase Color Depth and select 8bit Channel. Save the file as a PNG for future use on your paint can projects and then you can simply copy and paste it to your paint can and then use the Adjust/Manual Color Correction tool.

It works well with patterns too! 

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Have fun! I look forward to your creations!

Simple Two Toned Plaid SOE

So for this tutorial we are going to use the grayscale plaid in our previous tutorial: Easy Two-Tone Plaid and make various two toned plaid SOE backgrounds.  This is so easy you are going to be ecstatic!

This tutorial will work in Paint Shop Pro 8 and up.

Let’s rock and roll!

 

Step 1 – Open PSP and Go to File/New and use the following settings:

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Step 2 – Using your flood fill tool; fill the empty layer with the color you want as your plaid color.

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For this tutorial I am using pink. Here is what my layer pallet looks like:

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And this is what my image looks like:

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Step 2 – Go to Layers/New Raster Layer.  Then click on your foreground color picker in your materials pallet.  It looks like this:

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Now select the Patterns tab and then find the Grayscale pattern we made previously.

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Step 3 – Select your Flood Fill Tool again and fill the new raster layer with the pattern.  Our image will now appear as below:

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And our layer pallet looks like this:

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Step 4 – Select the Blend Mode drop down button above raster 2. It looks like this:

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Select the option Overlay.  And our image now appears as below:

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Cool huh?  Now we can make as many plaid SOE sized backgrounds that are two toned as we want.  All we have to do is flood fill Raster 1 with a different color.  Save this as a template so each time you need a two toned plaid SOE you can just pull up this file and flood fill Raster 1 with a new color quickly and easily!  Here are a few more samples:

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OK….so the other method is even more simple.  You create your new image using the settings we’ve used in this one.  Then flood fill the area with the plaid pattern.  Simply use the Adjust/Manual Color Correction and change the plaid color to something different.  We used these steps in the previous Easy Two-Tone Plaids tutorial.  Either way you do it be sure to save it as a template for future use. If you are using the adjust method….I suggest you flood fill the area with the plaid layer….then save as your template then go to Window/Duplicate and make any color adjustments there so that you do not change the original permanently.

 

I hope you have fun with this tut!  I look forward to seeing what you all make!

Easy Two-Tone Plaids

So everyone had much fun with creating the cute imperfect plaids and Mary Ann made one that inspired me to create this tutorial.  This tutorial will work with Paint Shop Pro 8 and up.

Supplies: Template from the Cute Imperfect Plaids tutorial.

(If you have not completed this tutorial…look for it HERE.)

Now, once you have made your template you can continue with this tutorial.

And, here we go!

Step 1 – Open your PSP and then open the template you made previously in the Cute Imperfect Plaids tutorial.

Our template looks like this:

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And our Layers pallet looks like this:

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Go to Window/Duplicate and then close out the original so that we do not make any permanent changes to the original.

Step 2 – Click on Copy of Raster 1 layer to make it active and then go to Adjust/Manual Color Correction.  Using your eye dropper, select the black area on the left hand tile and it will appear as your source color.  Then select the color tile below the source (your eye dropper will appear) and click it to select the new color you want.  Select the second from the top gray color (64,64,64) and make it your new source color.

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Color to select:

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Step 3 – Click on the layer that is labeled Copy (2) of Raster 1 and repeat the above step except this time select the shade of gray just below the previous one selected.

Step 4 – Click on the layer that is labeled Copy (3) of Raster 1 and repeat step 2 above and select the lightest shade of gray below the one in step 3.  Your template should now look like below:

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Step 4 – Now go to Layers/Merge/Merge Visible.  Create a new raster layer by going to Layers/New Raster Layer.  Flood fill this layer with White.  Then using your mouse, drag the layer below the merged layer.  And then repeat the Layers/Merge/Merge Visible.  Our image now appears as below:

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Step 5 – We will now repeat the same steps to create the plaid as we did in the Cute Imperfect Plaids.  Go to Effects/Plugins/Simple/Diamonds.  Our image will now look like this:

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Step 5 – Go to Effects/Plugins/Simple/4 Way Average.  And now our image looks like below:

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Step 6 – Save this as a jpg for future use.  You can save it as a template to a folder. AND I suggest you save it in your patterns folder as well.  For now, we are going to save it in our patterns folder.  And then we are going to change it to suit our needs as we need it.  So go to File/Export/JPG Optimizer and select your My Documents/My PSP Files/Patterns.  I have an additional folder within my patterns folder called RW-Patterns.  (The RW being my initials) So I am going to save it as GrayscalePlaid and then click save.

Step 7 – OK….we are going to do a couple of things now.  First we are going to recolor the image we have at hand……our saved grayscale plaid template……and with this you can make as many colors as you want to save as patterns in your PSP. Ready? OK….let’s go!  With your now merged flattened plaid image….go to Adjust/Manual Color Correction.  Select the shade of gray of your choice to change the plaid to a two toned plaid.  That will become our source.  Then click on the tile below the source and select the new color you want.  For this tutorial I am selecting the darkest shade of gray as my source and then a dark shade of red.  Here is my end product:

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If I select the lightest shade of gray and then the darker red as my end color, here are my results:

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Although it is different….it is most likely not something we want to use with any candy wrappers…..ink eater!  So, selecting the darker shade of gray gives us better results.

Step 8 – Save this as a JPG to your patterns folder.  And then go to Edit/Undo Manual Color Correction.  Repeat the Manual color correction making as many two toned plaids as you want and saving them in your patterns folder for future use!  Here are a couple more examples:

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Now…..I am sure you will want to play with this all day long making various colors in various shades.  And that is fabulous!  It is a great way to repeat steps and learn them.  In the next tutorial I am writing I will show you how to use the grayscale plaid in another manner.  Have fun making your two-toned plaids!  I hope you enjoyed this tutorial!

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Go Big Blue!

With NCAA March Madness in the happenings I just HAD to make this to support my state. 

Although it looks like it may come down to UofL vs. UK…..of the two….I will have to say…GO WILDCATS! 

UK-ByRhonda

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Cute Imperfect Plaids

So it has been a very long time since I have been in here! I so miss you my PSP Tut followers!  I am excited to be back and hope to start pushing out more tuts as time permits and as my brain can come up with them. I do have some tuts in mind using both PSP and the Silhouette Digital Cutter…but those are for another day!  So today we are going to accomplish a couple of things: first making a re-colorable template that will make creating many plaids from many different color sources easy, then I am going to show you how to make the plaid from the template!  These are not your typical plaids you see. These are kind of fun and imperfect which I, at the moment, happen to like.  OK….so on to the tut!

This tutorial will work in PSP9 and greater.

Tools you will need:

PSP of course!

Simple Filters: Diamond and 4 Way Average.

You can pick up both of these filters here:  Simple Filters

And now…..here we go!

 

Step 1 – Go to the site listed above and save both the Diamond and 4 Way Average filters to your hard drive. SUGGESTION:  If you are saving these tuts under Rhonda’s Tuts or whatever, save the filters to the folder that contains THIS tut.

Step 2 – Unzip the tuts into the folder where you are keeping your tuts.

Step 3 – Hold down your CTRL key and left click on both filter FOLDERS. Right click and select COPY

Step 4 – Go to where you keep your plugins.  For most people this would be My Documents/My PSP Files/Plugins.  Then right click and hit PASTE. Both filters are now installed.

Step 5 – Open your PSP and start a new image using the settings below:

 

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Step 6 – Click on your Selection tool:

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Step 7 – At the top, on the toolbar you will now click on the custom selection tool:

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Step 8 – Use the following settings:

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Step 9 – Your workspace should appear as below:

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Step 10 – Select your flood fill tool:

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Step 11 – Set your foreground color to black:

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Just left click on the rectangle area and you will be taken to the area to change the color to black.

 

Step 12 – Now, using your flood fill tool: Left click INSIDE the rectangle with the marching ants.  Your image will now appear as below:

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Step 13 – On the top toolbar: Go to Selections/Select None

Step 14 – On your layer pallet right click on the layer titled Raster 1 and select Duplicate.

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You will now have two layers and your layers pallet will look like below:

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Step 15 – Click on your Pick Tool (In PSP 9 or earlier this is your Raster Deform tool)

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and now at the top toolbar change your Position X from 0.00 to 75

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Your layers pallet should now appear as below:

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Step 16 – Now, right click on the layer that says Copy of Raster 1, select Duplicate, and repeat step 15 above EXCEPT change the X position from 75 to 150. Your image will now appear as below:

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And your layers pallet will appear as below:

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Step 17 – Right click on the layer that reads Copy (2) of Raster 1 and select duplicate. Repeat step 15 as above EXCEPT now change the Position X from 150 to 225.

Your image should now have 4 solid black stripes as below:

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And you should have 4 layers in your layers pallet.

Now on the top tool bar select Layers/Merge/Merge Visible. You will now have 1 layer that has 4 solid black stripes and a transparent background. Go to File/Save As  and save the file where you will be able to find it easy in the future.  BE SURE TO SAVE THIS AS A PSP WORKSPACE…..so you can make changes to it later if you would like AND name it something like stripes template…..or whatever is easier for you to remember.  Now, you have your template made.  It is saved as a workspace for future use. Now, let’s get on to making some cute imperfect plaids!

MAKING THE PLAID

Step 18 – On the top tool bar go to Window/Duplicate. You will now have a duplicate working area that looks just like the first. Now, close out the originally saved template so as to not make any permanent changes to it. Now, if you have a color swatch you want to use, open it now.  I am opening 2 to show you how easy it is to modify the template quickly and easily. So, I will now have open my Baby Jill and Baby Jack color swatches…..and this is what my screen looks like:

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Step 19 – Now at the top toolbar go to Selections/Select All and then Selections/Float then Selections/Defloat. All of your rectangles should appear as if they have “marching ants” around them and will look as below:

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Step 20 – In your materials pallet, click on the foreground color and your color wheel will come up. IF you have a color swatch out, simply hovering your mouse over the color you want for the pallet will show the color you can select, then left click and that color will be selected.  Then click OK. Now, go to your first rectangle and using the flood fill tool,  fill it with the first color you have chosen.  For mine, I am going to randomly select from the 5 colors of Baby Jill.  And therefore, this is what my image will now appear as:

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Step 21 – Repeat step 20 but this time select a different color and then flood fill the second rectangle.

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Step 22 – Repeat again filling the third and the fourth rectangles with a different color.  Here is what my image now appears as.  Yours will be different depending on the colors you have chosen.

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Step 23 – Now on your top tool bar go to Selections/Invert.  Your marching ants will now move to the inside, that is to say, between the rectangles.

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As you can see above, there are no marching ants to the left side, which means the area we will now color is between the pale yellow and hot pink and between the hot pink and the light pink….etc.

Step 24 – Now select a solid color to use as your fill color.  For this tutorial I am going to use white. And then using the flood fill tool, fill in the areas between the rectangles and to the far right.  My image now appears as below:

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Now at the top toolbar go to Selections/Select None.  You should have one layer with 4 different color stripes with a solid background color. Now, here is where the fun begins! 

Step 25 - Aat the top tool bar go to Effects/Plugins/Simple/Diamonds

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Your image will change to appear as below:

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Step 26 – Now, using the top tool bar go to Effects/Plugins/Simple/4WayAverage

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Your image will now appear as below:

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And there you go! You now have a template you can pull up anytime…go to Windows/Duplicate….close out the original and then change the stripe and background colors to whatever you would like and repeat the Diamond and 4 Way Average and have a bunch of different plaid patterns at your disposal!  I called this the imperfect plaid because to me it appears to be slightly “squiggly” but that could just be my eyes messing with me. LOL

FINALLY…..go to File/Export…..and export as a JPG….save it in your My Documents/My PSP Files/Patterns folder and you will be able to access the pattern whenever you like without having to open it over and over again!  I exported mine and placed it in My Documents/My PSP Files/My Patterns/  and then I named it BabyJaneImperfectPlaid.jpg  because that is the color swatch I used and because it is not a Gingham or Tartan plaid.

Here is my imperfect plaid using the Baby Jack color swatch.

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I hope you enjoyed this tut!  Happy PSP-ing!