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Welcome to Graphic Distractions.

I was recently asked by a very sweet lady if I would write a tutorial on how to make these .. bubble .. doo dad .. thingies. Not sure what to call them .. and not sure if I want to give them a real name. They can be used for many different things. Web Set buttons ... Picture Frames .. as part of a graphic such as an image of jewelry or a clock. A person is only limited by their own imaginations. This tutorial will show three different ways to make them ... with tubes .. with a mask .. and with a ding font.
Supplies: Paint Shop Pro 7 .. as far as I know, this should work in 6 as well. Zip File of supplies: Please click to download.

The Mask (Artdeco19.msk), should be placed in your mask folder for Paint Shop. The pathway is normally C:\Program Files\Jasc Software Inc\Paint Shop Pro 7\Masks. The Glass tube (smglass8.psp) should be placed where you normally save your graphics. The Brass image (rectangle-brassGD) should also be placed where you normally keep your graphics. The brass image is one that I scanned from a piece of brass I had in my craft closet .. there are many more scans on the "Clippings Page" at this site. There is a link at the bottom of the tutorial in case you would like to visit. Blade Pro Preset: gold_black. should be placed into the Environments and Textures folder for Super/ Blade Pro. The path way for this is normally .. C:\Program Files\Jasc Software Inc\Paint Shop Pro 7\Plugins\SuperBladePro\environments and textures. Ding Font: Please click to download.

This will need to be unzipped and placed in your font folder. The pathway for that is normally C:\WINDOWS\FONTS. The ding that I am using for this tutorial is called Design Ding 3 and the creator has graciously allowed me to offer it for download here ... but I do so hope that you will take a few minutes later and visit her site, Moonlight Designs

Lets play ....
First one we will make is the rectangle brass one.
1). Open rectangle-brassGD in Paint Shop.
This is a scan I made of a brass bit that I had in my craft closet. Notice the aging that is happening at the bottom? no worries we will take care of that.
2). Use the Selection tool .. anti alias checked, rectangle, 0 feather .. and starting in the far upper left corner make a selection of the top half of the image.

3). Go to Edit Copy
4). Go to Edit Paste as a new Layer. Deselect.
5). Go to Image/ Flip. Now use the Mover tool and position it so that it covers the bottom half of the image. Make sure to line up the points where it meets. It does not have to be exact .. just as long as it looks good to you.
6). Go to Layer/ Merge/ Merge Visible.
7). Now we are ready to cut away the background ... Using the Magic Wand .. with a Tolerance set to 32 .. select the outside white area around the brass piece. Hold down on the Shift key and click inside of the brass piece as well. Both the inside and the outside of the brass piece should now be selected
8). Go to Selections/ Modify/ Feather and place a 2 in the box.
9). Now hit your Delete three times. Deselect.

It can be saved as a psp file now ... if you think you might like to use this brass piece for another project sometime.
10). Use the magic wand (same settings) and click once inside the brass rectangle. Leave Selected.
11). Go to Selections/ Modify/ Expand and place a 3 in the box. This will help make sure there are no gaps at all in between the brass and the glass.
12). Go to Layers/ Add a new layer. Leave selected.
13). Go to the layer pallet and drag that layer to the bottom. Make sure that this layer is the active layer.
14). Go to Effects/ 3D Effects/ Cutout and use these settings... the color is #362F1C for those of you that like to copy paste it into the pallet. Deselect.

15). Go to Layers/ Add a new Layer
16). Set the Foreground color to white. Use the Air Brush (it looks like a spray can .. why they don't call it a spray can I don't know) with these settings .. Shape: Round, Size: 21, Hardness: 0, Opacity: 100, Step: 25, Density: 100. Make two highlights where your imagination believes they would be. For me .. I started in the left corner and where the shadow starts to turn gray and lighter, I placed one that mimicked the edge of the brass piece. Did the same on the bottom right side .. only a tiny bit less of a right angle.

17). Go to Effects/ Blur/ Gaussian Blur and place an 8 in the box. Now you have your highlight.
18). Go to your layer pallet .. click on the eye glasses for the brass rectangle layer to shut that layer off. Now go to Layers/ Merge/ Merge Visible. Then you can go back to the Layer pallet and turn the brass layer back on again. Doing this will merge the cut out and highlight together.

Now would be a good time to save this as a psp file .. so that it can be used again. This is of course a bit large for the things that it could be used for and that was done intentionally. When reducing an image Paint Shop takes away pixels that are already there to make the image smaller ... when enlarging an image Paint Shop adds pixels that were never there, to make it larger. That is why it is best to start large and have to reduce .. then to start too small and have to let Paint Shop choose what pixels to add to the image. The results are almost always better in reducing .. as apposed to enlarging.
You are more then welcome to finish this off any way you please .. but for the purpose of the tutorial, we will finish it off simply.
19). Go to Layers/ Add a new Layer
20). Go to the Layer Pallet and drag this new layer to the bottom.
21). Use the Selection tool, set to rectangle .. and select a section outside the glass part ... like so ...

22). Set the Foreground to a color or pattern that you like and, making sure that it is the new layer at the bottom is active, flood fill the selection. The color i used for the tutorial is #820404. Deselect.
23). Go to Layers/ Add a new Layer
24). Use the Text tool and add your name .. or any words of your choosing. The color does not really matter because we will use the cutout effect and the color will be cut away. Leave selected.
25). Now if one were to look in the Layer pallet it would be seen that the text selection is floating. In order for the cutout effect to cut away the color .. and not just add the shadow .. we will need to go to Selections/ Defloat.
26). Go to Effects/ 3D Effects/ Cutout and use these settings... the color is #362F1C.

27). Go to Layers/ Merge/ Merge Visible
29). Go to Image/ Resize and resize that layer in increments of 80% .. Sharpening in-between each resize .. till the image is the size you need it to be. By doing it in increments of 80% there is normally less blurring and deformation of the image .. seems to result in a crisper and cleaner out come.
30). Add a drop shadow of your choice.
31). Add a new layer and drag it to the bottom ... flood fill this layer with a background color and save.
Done .... one note though .. it you do this one in red, saving as a gif file might have a better out come then saving in jpg format. Jpg tends to muddy up the red color.

Hope that you have enjoyed this tutorial .. if you have any problems or questions, please use the email button below and I will do what I can to help.
If you would like to follow on to the next part .. making one of these do dads with a mask .. please click on the link below.

lilly

Second bubble thing

More Ipsum

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