How to accomplish specific tasks using PaintShop Pro
I had hoped to write a series of tutorials for the specific things we need for this course, but have not yet been able to. Meanwhile, the following list collects the most useful tutorials available on the Web. As long as the links continue to work, it's a substitute for the local tutorials that I haven't yet managed to write. Most of the tutorials are written for Version 4 of PaintShop Pro and the tools used may be on different menus or the icons may look different, but until I can write my own tutorials for Version 5, this is what there is.
Different Types of Text
- Simple Text Trick
- Oliver's Text
- Outlined Text, 1 (black text on a fuzzy colored shadow background)
- Outlined Text, 2 (text outlined in color, fill the same as the background)
- Shadow Text, 1 (Text casting a sharp mirror-image shadow of itself)
- Shadow Text, 2 (Text lying partly over a soft fuzzy shadow of itself). Of course you can just use the "add drop shadow" feature of PSP 5, which was not very developed in PSP 4. But try this out too!
- Soft 3D text (3D text on a fuzzy shadow background)
- Easy Embossed Text. Produces a soft embossed effect, suitable for background images and logos. He forgets to say that both the foreground and background should be the same very pale color (white is best): so after writing the text you can't actually see it until you add the shadow.
- 3D Text (gives a rather plastic look)
- Easy Beveled Text (with or without a drop shadow)
- Gold Text. This one is much easier than most gold effects.
- Silver Text. From the same place as the gold text above and using the same principles.
- Chrome Text. The half-way stage of this one produces a raised watermark effect very useful for putting logos on page backgrounds.
- Marble text. This is one of the tutorials I'd prefer to rewrite! It isn't explained very well. You may have to work through it 3 times to understand it.However, it illustrates how to use PSP's "Flood fill" with a pattern copied from a different image, which is a useful technique.
Buttons and Image Effects
- Sun Button. Kids will love this one!
- Oval Button. Again, I'd rewrite this myself a little differently, but haven't had the time. We'll learn it in the course the way I do it...<
- Fire. A nice use of the Smudge Retouch feature. There are several "fire" tutorials on the Web, but most require special plug-in filters and in this course I wanted to avoid requiring participants to download them. This one is Standard Virgin PSP. You'll find what he calls "the smudge tool" as one of the Modes of the Retouch tool in PSP 5. You can get a 3D effect to the fire by clicking on it with the Magic Wand with a very high tolerance (around 150 selects everything but the black background) and Buttonizing the selection, using a transparent edge. Then make the background transparent and you've got a floating fire, (usable as a school site's buttons by those who think that School Is Hell.) And of course you can Buttonize the whole image for a rectangular button.
