PSP X Tips and Tricks

From the Corel Paintshop Pro Scrapping Forum, by Sally Beacham: 

Hey doods and doodettes... it might be nice to have an on-going little "Tips and Tricks" thread to share some of our favorite PSP quick techniques. We all have a million ways to skin the same cat, but oddly enough - we all don't all know everything. And even if we do know how to do everything, somebody might have a SIMPLER way to do everything, and lord knows I love simpler ways to do stuff.

Please share your tricks - you can post screen caps and basically do a little mini-tut if need be. Or just explain it in 25 words or less, whatever you like. Any trick at all that makes life easier - someone is bound to need it just as much as you do!

This week, my favorite trick for making ribbon look like it's threaded through some sort of hole. (This works for anything you need to make appear as if it is going "thru" something else.)

Let's say you want to layer a doodad over a ribbon so that part of the doodad is tucked behind the ribbon (like a paper clip might be partially in front of and partially behind another object.)

Open both your ribbon image and your doodad image. Copy the doodad image, and paste it to a new layer in the ribbon image. Drag the doodad layer UNDER the ribbon layer in the Layer Palette, but do NOT touch it in the image itself, yet.

Copy the doodad again to a new layer, this time OVER the ribbon layer. The second doodad will be copied in the exact same position as the first. So now you have a little sandwich - Doodad Ribbon Doodad. (That's kinda catchy, isn't it... all the doodad dayyyyyyyy... oh be quiet.) See attached image "doodadsandwich.jpg."

DoodadSandwich

Now, change the layer link toggle on the two doodad layers to "1" - as indicated in the "doodadsandwich.jpg" image. Just click on the spot where normally it says "none" and the number will change to "1." (If you have a second set to link, you can change that set to "2".) This will link those two layers so they can be moved as one. Now - important bit - grab the MOVER tool.... NOT the Pick tool. The Pick tool in PSP X will move one layer independently, but the Mover tool will maintain the linked positions. SO ... with the Mover tool, move your doodads to whereever you'd like them along the length of ribbon.

If you need to rotate the doodad, you WILL need to use the Pick tool. Set the angle of rotation manually in the Tool Options, rotate one doodad, and then move to the other doodad layer and rotate it using the same settings. Make sure you go BACK to the Mover tool if you need to move the doodad after you rotate it.>

Make sure you have the TOP doodad layer as the active layer. Now, grab your Eraser tool. All you really need to worry about is setting the size appropriately for the image you are working on - otherwise, the default Eraser settings are mint. Now, just erase where you want the doodad to appear to be UNDER the ribbon. You don't even have to be overwhelming precise about the outside edge because guess what? That second copy of the doodad is UNDER the ribbon already, so if you over-erase at the edge of the ribbon, the bottom doodad will show through. Just don't erase anything that needs to be on TOP of the ribbon. See the attached:
"doodaderased.jpg."

DoodadErased

Add shadows after (but before you merge anything.) Often I only need to add shadows to the bottom doodad, and the ribbon. But sometimes (like this time) I need to add shadows to the top doodad as well, so watch those carefully, that's when some little unerased bits might crop up to bug you.

DoneDoodad.jpg

DoneDoodad

Hope this helps someone!

Sally Beacham
www.dizteq.com / www.lvsonline.com Paint Shop Pro 8 Zero to Hero
Digital Scrapbooking (Course Technology)


"GoatChick" <GoatChick@NoSpam.com> wrote in message news:43dd6928_1@cnews...
>
> O my??? Just a ribbon...LOLOLOL
> U know how they make it cross the page and then u can write on it too. Hugsssssssss

Are you up for installing a plugin filter?
Greg's Pool Shadow, in Greg's Factory Output Vol. II at http://www.state-of-entropy.com/ - is just the thing for making satin ribbons.

Start with a new image, as wide and as long as you want your ribbon (maybe 1 inch x12 inches, that should be plenty, 200 ppi.)  Fill that image with a liner gradient, 90 degree angle, perhaps a couple repeats, depends on the gradient you choose. I like the Electric Blues gradient to play with. Apply Greg's Pool Shadow plugin effect, play with the sliders till you see the look you like in the preview.

You can add an edge by selecting the whole ribbon, and then contracting the selection by a few pixels. Invert that selection. Go to Effects>Texture Effects>Blinds and  add a vertical blinds effect with a width of 2, opacity of about 80, color black. 
After you apply the effect, you probably want to crop the ends off the ribbon, since you wouldn't have a bound edge there.

Once you paste your ribbon into your layout, you can use the Warp Mesh or Warp Brush to move it around a bit, so it isn't so straight.

Sally


My newest tip and trick
: when trying to recolor parts of a .png: click the padlock on the layers palette to protect your transparent background. It's quicker sometimes than using your selection tool and changing the settings.



Angela Cable has a whole section devoted to Scrapbooking tutorials for various
versions of Paint Shop Pro, at
http://www.psplinks.com/content/Scrapbooking.html 

Sally Beacham
www.dizteq.com
www.lvsonline.com  
Paint Shop Pro 8 Zero to Hero
Digital Scrapbooking (Course Technology)

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