PSP Beginners Tutorial

Making an hourglass with Paint shop Pro 6:

1. Open Paint Shop Pro and open the hourglass image.
you can click on the image to save it to your computer.

2. Check the number of colors in your image.
Click on colors and go to the bottom of the drop down menu.
Be sure your image has 16 million colors.
If necessary click on Increase to 16 million colors.

3. TO make the uprights look like chrome.
Click on the selections tool (see image to left).
Place the selection tool inside one of the uprights
and click with your mouse.

Little "marching ants" will appear around the area.
Now to select the other upright, hold the shift key
and move the selection tool to the other upright,
click on other upright. (both uprights should
now have the marching ants around them.

To get a complete flood fill effect it is very important to
expand and feather the selected areas:
a. click on selections on the menu
b. move down to and select modify
c. then select expand
d. use a setting of 1 or 2
e. click on selections on menu again
f. move down to and click feather g. use the same setting (it should still be there)
DO NOT WORRY IF THE ANTS ARE OUTSIDE OF YOUR SELECTED AREA.
PSP is set to fill correctly, your ants should be just outside the area that you want to color/apply blade pro setting to. The expansion give the software a few pixels to work with and the feather softens the edge of the fill.

Your image should look like the one on the left.

Now you will use the PSP effects menu.
click on image, effects and choose chrome
See the next image
(popup screen which appears when you click chrome)

SAVE YOUR IMAGE. THEN CLICK ON EDIT. EMPTY CLIPBOARD. AND EDIT EMPTY COMMAND HISTORY.

This is a very important step. Paint Shop pro saves a copy of your entire image every time you click. Think about it, that is a lot of space. It has a set capacity and if the command history and clipboard get overloaded PSP will just automatically close and ALL YOUR WORK IS GONE!!!

If you click auto proof on you can see the effects of any changes you made

You can change the little color square by clicking on it
the eyedropper will appear and you select a color from the pallette.
OR you can leave it as is.

You can adjust he shininess or the number of flaws (bumps) in the chrome
Just move the sliders and when you are happy with the effects click okay

NOW we will flood fill the top and bottom bands.

First you need to change the colors of the background and foreground options
click on the foreground square (top one)
in the pop up menu type #866b58 (see green arrow)
click ok
click on the background square (bottom one)
in the pop up menu type #FCE8D2
Click ok

Now click on the flood fill tool
(looks like bucket of paint)
Click on the top drop down box
and change it to linear gradient.
Now click on the next tab on top of the pop up screen
the pop up will change to one like the one to the right
Move down the selection box until FOREGROUND-BACKGROUND appears
You can move the clock hand around to change the effect
Your colors and effect are now preset

SAVE YOUR IMAGE. THEN CLICK ON EDIT. EMPTY CLIPBOARD. AND EDIT EMPTY COMMAND HISTORY.

Select both the top and bottom bands :
click on the selection tool
click on the top
hit the shift tool
and click on the bottom section
there should be marching ants around each section
Now selection, modify, expand, set to 1
selection, modify, feather, set to 1
Click on the flood fill again and click on both the areas
They should flood fill with the colors in graduating shades.
Your image should look like the one on the right.

SAVE YOUR IMAGE. THEN CLICK ON EDIT. EMPTY CLIPBOARD. AND EDIT EMPTY COMMAND HISTORY.

Now we need to draw a little. The area within the glass where the sand goes can not be selected without getting all the glass area. Change the foreground to black. Now select the paintbrush and set it to 2 pixels (see image to left). Draw lines that connect the inner lines with the outer glass (see image below). If you click on the area with your selection tool you will know that you have drawn the lines completely to the edge if only the middle (sand) section gets the marching ants around it.

Now change the foreground color to a light tan
(#FCE8D2 is what I used) and the background to white.

Now we will change the flood fill preset
so that the fill appears more like sand.
Click on the flood fill (paint can)
On the pop up menu click on the paper texture box
choose coarse sand.

Flood fill the sand section by clicking on the area.
You can click more than once to get a darker effect

You can also click on the command box and adjust the flood fill angle.

Play around a little until you like the color

SAVE YOUR IMAGE. THEN CLICK ON EDIT. EMPTY CLIPBOARD. AND EDIT EMPTY COMMAND HISTORY.

Now we can make the glass area look like glass.

You will need the globes tube.
click here to download globe zips You will need to unzip them and then open them in PSP 6. Then you file export, picture tube,
count the number of images in each row
and the number of rows.
Fill in the boxes in tube popup box and name your tube.
Now you can use the tubes and adjust the size of them.

Select the glass section of your hourglass.
Selection, modify, expand, 1.
Selection, modify, feather, 1.
Click on the tubes tool
Looks like a paint brush with a blue clip on it.
select the globe tube and set it to 77.

Click on the upper section of the glass and the globe will appear.
Repeat on the lower section of the glass
Your image should look like the one to the left.

SAVE YOUR IMAGE.
THEN CLICK ON EDIT. EMPTY CLIPBOARD. AND EDIT EMPTY COMMAND HISTORY.

Now if you want a background continue. Otherwise you are done. COME ON FINISH IT UP!! You can just select the background section, modify expand and modify feather and then flood fill it (but lets learn to use layers and do it right!!

Click on layers, add raster layer. A popup menu will appear.

You can name your layer but for now just click okay.

(that was easy - but nothing appeared to happen).

Click on the layers palette
(if it is not open click on red/blue squares on your menu).
Since we want our added layer to be the background layer
we need to change the current background to a layer.
There can only be one background layer.
Click on the background layer and
move down the dropdown box to promote to layer.

Now we must move the new layer below the old layer
so it can act as a background.
Click on layer 1 in the layer palette, and move it down.
Now click on layer 2 and click on the eyeglasses (they will turn red)

Your image should now look like this

DO NOT WORRY WE HAVE JUST BLOCKED THE OTHER IMAGE

Click on the Flood Fill tool, change the paper texture to none.
Now click on your color palette and choose two shades of a color you like.
I used the teal green ones (a dark and light one)

Be sure that you check your layer palette and that you select layer#1 (it should be blue). FLOOD FIll the layer. It should turn color.

IF it doesn't you have the wrong layer selected.
To fix this edit, undo. Click on the layer palette
and click the other layer and flood fill again.

SAVE YOUR IMAGE.
THEN CLICK ON EDIT. EMPTY CLIPBOARD. AND EDIT EMPTY COMMAND HISTORY.

Now we will add texture to our background
Click Image,
Effects,
Texture.
Be sure auto preview is checked
Change the color box to one close to your colors
Select #54 in the texture box.

SAVE YOUR IMAGE.
THEN CLICK ON EDIT. EMPTY CLIPBOARD. AND EDIT EMPTY COMMAND HISTORY.

Now let's look at the entire image.
We need to unblock the layer we blocked.
Click on the layers palette.
Click on the red sunglass area and it will change to glasses.
Click on this layer (it will turn blue). Now look at the image

Where is the background you ask?

Well it is behind a white wall.

Removing the white wall.
Click on the selection tool.
Select an area of the background.
Hold the shift key and click on all the background areas.
When all are selected.
Click on selection, modify, expand, 1.
Click Selection, Modify, Feather, 1.
Now click on the scissors and cut away the wall.

SAVE YOUR IMAGE.
THEN CLICK ON EDIT. EMPTY CLIPBOARD. AND EDIT EMPTY COMMAND HISTORY.

HURRAY!!!

YOU MADE IT!!!

Your Image should look similar to this one.
If you have had problems please email me and explain the problem.
I will assist you and fix the tutorial.

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I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. Please feel free to contact me with any thoughts for improving it. Email Me Page Updated December 1, 2002.

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