PSP 8-- Beat

Heart Beat Dragons

I claim the copyright to this tutorial. You are free to do whatever you please with what you make, but please do not take my tutorial. Do not send the tutorial through email. Only share my link.

This tutorial was created for some friends of mine who wanted to begin learning more about PSP. It is intended for beginners to learn how to make a beating heart. If you have any questions, please feel free to email me.

To do this tutorial you will also need Paint Shop Pro. I used Paint Shop Pro 8, but the steps used may also be done in Version 9. You may download a free trial at Jasc.

Remember to save as a psp file often!

1. Open a new transparent image, size = 500 x 500

2. Set the foreground color = null and background color = red. Choose your heart preset shape and draw out a large red heart. If you do not have a heart preset shape, you can make one from my heart tutorial for PSP 8.

3. Right-click on the vector layer and choose Convert to Raster Layer.

4. With the magic wand, click on the heart to select it.

5. Right-click on the heart layer and choose New Raster Layer

6. Choose the airbrush tool. Set the foreground color = white, opacity = 80%, density = 80, size = 20. Airbrush along the edge as shown in the pic below.

7. In the top menu, click Adjust > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Set to Radius = 15 - 20

8. Right-click on the top layer and choose Merge > Merge Visible

9. In top menu, click Adjust > Noise > Add Noise. Set to uniform, Noise = 10

10 Right-click on top heart layer and choose Duplicate.

11 In top menu click Distort > spherize. Set to 25, and Ellipse

12. Open up the tube that you want to use. Left-click on the tube layer, holding mouse button down. Drag the tube layer onto the heart image and release. This copies the tube to the heart image as a new layer.

13. In top menu, click Effects > 3D Effects > Drop Shadow. Apply these settings: Vertical = 3, Horizontal = 4, Opacity = 50, Blur = 15, Color = Black. CHECK Shadow on New layer.

14. With the magic wand click on the bottom heart layer in the extra space so that you select the region outside of the heart.

15. In the Layer Palette, click on the tube SHADOW layer. Press the delete key on the keyboard. This deletes the part of the shadow that extends beyond the heart (so when we save as a gif, it will be a cleaner edge!)

16. HIDE all layers EXCEPT the tube layer and shadow layer by clicking on the eye and making a Red X.

17. Right-click on the top layer and choose Merge > Merge Visible

18. Right-click on the merged layer and choose Duplicate

19. Rearrange the layers so that they are in this order going DOWN: copy of merged, copy of heart, merged, heart. Mine shows a 5th layer, but yours should not have one.