Rumpled Silk Background-Sig Tag
Some of my friends have been taking the psp classes at Stepping Stones. If you have a paintshop program it is well worth the time to go through it. It is very time friendly whether you have a lot of time or don't. It goes through almost all the tools in the program and is good for versions 8 through 10. Stephanie aquired PSP XI and finished up with that.
This is a tutorial Stephanie did in Stepping Stones. I have her permission to post it here. Her pictures are from tube groups she is in. Stephanie, if you have the author of that tube you might put it in here.
Stephanie’s Signature Tag Tutorial
We’ve all seen them, those gorgeous works of art with our friend’s names on them, or you may even belong to a signature tag group where you request them while wishing you could do something like that yourself, right? I know I did! Luckily, with PSP and the superb lessons from our Stepping Stone’s instructors we can now design our own personalized tags.
Let’s make one together, OK?
The Background:
I decided I wanted a look of rumpled silk for my background. Open a new image 450x450 and choose black as the background color. In your materials palette choose white as your foreground/stroke color. Click on the paintbrush icon and using the following settings, draw lined and or circular squiggles all over your image leaving plenty of black background showing. Size: 25; Hardness: 50; Step: 32; Density, Thickness, Opacity: 100; Blend: Normal. Your resulting image should look something like mine:
Next click on your Smudge tool. You want to smear the white into the black until it begins to look like rumpled grey fabric to your eyes. To achieve this I used my smudge tool in 3 sizes: 50, 150, and 300 and the other settings were: Hardness: 20; Step: 1; Density: 90; Thickness: 75; and Opacity: 50. Play with yours until you’re satisfied and then we’ll apply a plug-in effect. Here’s my final smudged image.
Now we will take this image and make it a seamless tile. I used a plug-in effect (Redfield Seamless Workshop) but you can use PSP Effects - Image Effects - Seamless Tiling if so desired. Experiment with this until you’re satisfied with the results.
Next, click Effects - Artistic Effects - Chrome. Settings: Flaw: 2; Brightness: 1; Color: C0C0C0, click OK. You should now have something similar to this:
Wasn’t that easy? Now you’ve got a shiny satin fabric background! Looks like we need some color though, huh? Add three more raster layers above your grey satin background, reduce their opacity to 40. Then clicking on the first empty layer let’s go to your materials palette and choose a color. I chose pink, then I clicked the flood fill tool and filled my image. To try another color TURN OFF (click the small
eye, remember?) your current colored layer and highlight the next empty layer. Go back to your materials palette and choose another color, flood fill your image. Continue this until you find a color you’re happy with, then we’ll move on. Here’s my final colored image.
Add another raster layer. Click on the tube tool and choose one. Then add it to your image. I chose a fantasy image of a tattooed girl with red roses in her hair. See how her shirt matches the silk? I’m also going to add a drop shadow behind her (3, 3, 95, 2). Simple details like this can make your design stand out. I placed her in the far right corner and reduced the opacity to 50. OK, let’s try adding another image!
Add another raster layer. Click View - Palettes - Organizer (or Browser) and open another image. Hit Shift+D to make a copy of your image, then close the original. Double-click on your foreground/stroke box and go to your pattern tab, click on the arrow and find your image. I used these settings: Angle: 0; Scale: 120. You may have to adjust this depending on the image you chose. Click on the Airbrush tool and using these settings spray your new image onto your newest layer. Use the move tool to place it exactly where you want it. When you’re done reduce the opacity to a desired level. (hint: I went to 45.) Don’t forget drop shadows can really make your images pop!
For our final step we will add our name using the text tool. So, add another layer, a Vector layer. Choose a bright color
for your background and a muted color for your foreground stroke, click over to the Gradient tab from your materials palette (remember the shortcut?) It’s below the fore/background windows - the middle circle! Click arrow choose foreground/background gradient set at Angle: 0; Repeats: 0.
Click on the text tool, choose a font. Click on image to apply text. Using the vector tool adjust the height, width, and placement of your font. Have fun with it! For mine I used Script MT Bold, size: 36. Using the Vector nodes I stretched and elongated it. See?
I like it so far but think it could use some sparkle so I’m going to change to a raster layer and try some effects - or I could have clicked on the + sign beside the Vector layer and right-clicked in the text area to convert my text to curves, then clicked as character shapes and worked each letter separately but I want a single effect on my name so I’m going to right-click, convert to raster layer then experiment with some effects. What are you going to do?
Stephanie’s text settings:
Effects - Artistic - Halftone: Line, 2; Color: RGB; Screen Angles: 1. 108 2. 162 3. 90.
It produces a nice raised fabric effect which I think ties in nicely with the background.
When you’re done with all your modifications be sure to save your work as a pspimage (so you can always rework it) then click Layers - Merge - Merge All and save as a jpg and you have your personally designed signature tag!
I hope you enjoyed this lesson and are pleased with your final results, I’m sure it looks fabulous! Here’s mine. |
