PSP X2-- Mage Night

Mage Night

I own the intellectual copyright for the written tutorial. What you make is yours, but please do not take my tutorial. Share only my link.

This tutorial is intended for beginners to learn how to create a tag. If you have any questions, please feel free to Email me.

To do this tutorial you will also need Paint Shop Pro. I wrote this with Paint Shop Pro X2, but the steps may also be done in any version. You may download a free trial at Corel.

Remember to save as a psp file often!

Download Supplies. Inside the supply folder are various forms of the lady tube and a preset. Open the lady tube of your choice in PsP. Save the preset in your My Documents > My PSP > preset folder (NOT preset shapes)

Download Tree brushes. At this site, choose the tree branch brush set that you want to use. Step #14 tells you how to import the brushes (if you need to know.)

Download Greg's Factory Output II plugin, and install into plugin folder.

1. Open up a new, transparent image, size 600 x 400 pixels.

2. Flood-fill the image with black or a very dark color.

3. Layers > New Raster Layer

4. Choose the lasso tool. In the toolbar at the top, set the selection type = freehand, mode = replace, feather = 15, smoothing = 0, CHECK anti-alias

5. With the lasso tool, draw a selection that looks like a "cloud". Leave some space on the left side and the bottom like I did below. Make a complete circle with your selection tool by releasing the mouse button.

6. Choose a Dark color for your sky. I chose dark blue, and put this in your foreground color. Choose a medium color shade for the background. Set the Material Palette to gradient, and choose the Foreground-background gradient, angle = 0, repeats =0

7. Fill the selection with the gradient.

8. Adjust > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Radius = 30

9. Layers > New Raster Layer

10. Choose the airbrush tool (with the paintbrush menu). Set shape = round, size = 500, hardness = 50, step = 10, density = 10, thickness = 100, rotation = 0, opacity = 50, blendmode = normal

11. Left-click once in the center of the selection.

12. Selection > Select None

13. Set the layer blend mode = Dissolve, and then lower the opacity to a number between 2 - 4.

14. Now load the branch brush of your choice. If you haven't already done so, the brush will need to be imported into PSP. Unzip the brush folder some where. Then click on

File > Import > Custom Brush
Click open and find the brush folder. Then click Add All. OK

15. Choose the paint brush tool. Set the brush tip to the tree branch brush of your choice.

16. Layers > New Raster Layer

17. Set the foreground = black or whatever dark color you had picked in Step 1. Left-click once on the left corner of your image to put the branches in the picture.

18. Choose the selection marquee tool. Set selection type = circle, mode = add/shift, Feather = 0, Check Anti-alias

19. Draw a circle that is about 100 pixels wide. It doesn't matter where you draw it. You'll be able to move it later.

20. Effects > Artistic Effects > Balls and Bubbles. In the Last Used Menu, choose the preset that you had saved with the supplies: MagicGlobe Press ok.

21. Open up the lady tube of your choice. Image > Resize, set height = 375. Edit > Copy.

Click on your image. Edit > Paste as New Layer. With the mover tool, move the lady into the bottom right corner, and move the ball/globe into place.

22. Now at this point, I decorated my globe. I added a new layer and then I used a sparkle tube on the globe and around her hand to make it look like she had magic. I even added a small dove tube to the globe and slightly blurred it.

23. Choose a dark color from your tube to be the foreground color, and a light/medium color from the tube to be a background color.

24. Image > Add Borders Symmetric, size = 2, color = dark foreground color

25. With the magic wand select the border.

26. Effects > Artistic Effects > Halftone. halftone pattern = round, size = 2, screen angles 1 = 108, 2 = 162, 3 = 90, blend mode = normal, opacity = 50, color scheme = RGB