AnnaKirsten
16th October 2005, 18:43
How to produce a picture, relatively easily, inside PSP8, USING LAYERS and tubes from inside the program itself - none imported!
For this tutorial you will need PSP8 and PSP Xtras 1 & 2.
Firstly, here is a screenshot of my desktop inside PSP8 so that you can see what palettes and tool bars I have, and to what I will be referring during the tutorial. It also shows the picture not far from one of its finished states.
http://img270.imageshack.us/img270/8541/screenshotofpspworkplacewithpi.jpg
And.... Here is the picture itself in the finished state just using PSP itself.
http://img270.imageshack.us/img270/8605/demonstration14td.jpg
______________
Here is how this Picture was produced...
1. Open new workspace at 1000x800 pixels, leave it transparent for now, so that at a later stage you can decide on your background colours.
2. Go to Layers at top of page and open new Raster Layer, at default settings, transparent.
3. Select Tube Tool, select Hills. Leave scale at 100 pix, and the other settings at default. Click part way up your picture in various places to place your hills. You may wish to undo several times until you get the shapes of positions you want.
4. Open new transparent Raster Layer (this will be Raster 4), then right-click on it in the Layer window and move it down so it's behind the one you've just worked on. Still using your hills tube, now change the scale to 45 and dot a few more hills behind the ones you've just produced.
5. Now open a 5th Raster Layer, same as before, and again arrange this so it's below Raster 4. Select the mountain tube at 100 pix. Place a few mountains on this layer behind the hills.
NOTE: You can, at any time, move items around in layers, so if you find unwanted gaps between the mountains, for instance, you can select the Move tool and adjust them.
6. Repeat as in No. 5, making smaller mountains behind.
7. Now GO BACK TO RASTER 4. Select the Water tube. Start placing water in your picture first randomly at 100 pix, then go back over the more distant parts at 50 pix, and notice this will not show over the top of the scenery you have already placed in your picture, but it will show where there are gaps in between. This is what we want for this exercise.
8. Click on Raster 4 in the Layer palette, so it's highlighted. Now create another new Layer, Raster 6. (You will notice that new layers you create will appear just above the one you have highlighted in the Layer palette.) Your list should look like this from top to bottom: 2, 3, 6, 4, 5, and 1. Now choose Wave Fronts. These vary enormously in size, and are really like a form of foamy mist. Dot some around towards the foreground of your picture. NOTE: You may want to consider where the sun will be for this part, so that the appropriate areas are highlighted with these "wave fronts".
9. At this stage, I have decided to put in the background colour. I have chosen Gradient Electric Blues, with the gradient inverted so that the brightest part is across the middle, horizontally. Using the Fill Tool, select Raster 1 in your Layers Palette and click on it with this colour.
10. Now we can have a little fun! Click on Raster 3, which contains your more distant hills. Now choose Forest deciduous for your tube, and click a few times on those distant hills, to give an impression of trees. You'll need to be fairly discreet with this.
11. Click on Raster 4 (mountains and water). Create another layer (Raster 7) so it stays right above Raster 4. Choose Cloud 1 for your tube, leave at 100. Click below the bottom of the mountains just a few times (I did two clicks) to get a misty effect around the mountains and the furthest hills. This can also help give a sense of distance.
12. Click on Raster 2 and add new layer, Raster 8. This is where you can add some vegetation, such as grasses. It is at the moment the uppermost layer, so whatever you put here will be over the top of everything else so far.
13. Click on Raster 6 and add new layer, Raster 9. Choosing the Hills tube again, scale it at 15, and just add a few mor hills in the distance in front of the lower parts of the mountains. NOW here's a little trick! Richt click on Raster 9 and Choos Properties, and where you have Blend Mode, choose Hard Light. You will see that this changes your distant hills into a lighter colour, as though the sun is spotlighting them.
NOTE: You can try this out with other layers, choosing different properties to see what results you get, but bear in mind that you will mostly get underneath layers showing through. What lies underneath a layer will always make a difference to your result when using this facility. I use this facility a lot in my work, and it is one of the most important reasons for working in layers.
14. OK, now click on Raster 2 and go to Enhance Photo and choose Clarify. I chose 5 (max) for this purpose. You will see how this brings clarity and presence, together with a little lightening of tones, to the foreground hills.
15. Let's add some soft clouds. Click on Raster 1 and add another layer, Raster 10. Now choose Cloud 02, take it down to 20, and add a few clouds so that they look fairly realistic. However, they will look rather harsh, so Right click on Raster 10, Choose Properties and Soft Light Blend Mode. You'll see the difference this makes.
16. Now we'll add a little sun! Sunlight, and many other effects, will only work on a solid type of surface. We therefore need to click on Raster 1, the background colour. Now Go to Effects, Illumination Effects and choose Sunburst. Here are my settings for this picture..
In the left side window I have the cross situated at Horizontal 5, Vertical 1 (these figures show up inside the dialogue box you are now looking at). The Density is set at 43, Brightness at zero, as we don't want sharp sunrays coming down onto this somewhat misty scene. Brightness (Circle) is also set to zero. The colour of the sun is R254, G 254 and B 220. A very pale yellow.
Now we come to the final stages of our picture before we start merging layers, or whatever we finally wish to do with it. This is to use some of the tools available, such as the Lighten/darken tool, Push tool, soften tool, Smudge tool and so on, in order to change shapes, accentuate areas, and so on. Using the smudge tool, you can gently stretch the lower surfaces of the hills, in their respective layers, so that they appear to reflect into the water.
Experiment with them, you'll find it fun to do, but make sure you keep saving your work at each stage, so that if you go too far with something, you can always either undo, or actually close the picture and re-open it at the last saved stage.
REMEMBER: When you start to merge down your layers (if that's what you decide to do) you cannot merge a two layers where the properties have been changed without this affecting both the layers.
______________________________
Basically I finished this picture off using the methods just mentioned, adding a couple more layers where I felt I needed to add extra bits of land or effects; I then cheated a little and used a filter on layer Raster 1, from Filters Unlimited, in order to change the ambience of it, as I didn't feel too happy with the rather gawdy colouring. (Link HERE (http://www.icnet.de/filters_unlimited/index.html) to download a trial version - it isn't all that expensive to buy and will give you many more features that can be continually added to.) I also selected the water area in the appropriate layer, and applied the same filter to it.
ENJOY!!
Written by AnnaKirsten 16th October 2005
For this tutorial you will need PSP8 and PSP Xtras 1 & 2.
Firstly, here is a screenshot of my desktop inside PSP8 so that you can see what palettes and tool bars I have, and to what I will be referring during the tutorial. It also shows the picture not far from one of its finished states.
http://img270.imageshack.us/img270/8541/screenshotofpspworkplacewithpi.jpg
And.... Here is the picture itself in the finished state just using PSP itself.
http://img270.imageshack.us/img270/8605/demonstration14td.jpg
______________
Here is how this Picture was produced...
1. Open new workspace at 1000x800 pixels, leave it transparent for now, so that at a later stage you can decide on your background colours.
2. Go to Layers at top of page and open new Raster Layer, at default settings, transparent.
3. Select Tube Tool, select Hills. Leave scale at 100 pix, and the other settings at default. Click part way up your picture in various places to place your hills. You may wish to undo several times until you get the shapes of positions you want.
4. Open new transparent Raster Layer (this will be Raster 4), then right-click on it in the Layer window and move it down so it's behind the one you've just worked on. Still using your hills tube, now change the scale to 45 and dot a few more hills behind the ones you've just produced.
5. Now open a 5th Raster Layer, same as before, and again arrange this so it's below Raster 4. Select the mountain tube at 100 pix. Place a few mountains on this layer behind the hills.
NOTE: You can, at any time, move items around in layers, so if you find unwanted gaps between the mountains, for instance, you can select the Move tool and adjust them.
6. Repeat as in No. 5, making smaller mountains behind.
7. Now GO BACK TO RASTER 4. Select the Water tube. Start placing water in your picture first randomly at 100 pix, then go back over the more distant parts at 50 pix, and notice this will not show over the top of the scenery you have already placed in your picture, but it will show where there are gaps in between. This is what we want for this exercise.
8. Click on Raster 4 in the Layer palette, so it's highlighted. Now create another new Layer, Raster 6. (You will notice that new layers you create will appear just above the one you have highlighted in the Layer palette.) Your list should look like this from top to bottom: 2, 3, 6, 4, 5, and 1. Now choose Wave Fronts. These vary enormously in size, and are really like a form of foamy mist. Dot some around towards the foreground of your picture. NOTE: You may want to consider where the sun will be for this part, so that the appropriate areas are highlighted with these "wave fronts".
9. At this stage, I have decided to put in the background colour. I have chosen Gradient Electric Blues, with the gradient inverted so that the brightest part is across the middle, horizontally. Using the Fill Tool, select Raster 1 in your Layers Palette and click on it with this colour.
10. Now we can have a little fun! Click on Raster 3, which contains your more distant hills. Now choose Forest deciduous for your tube, and click a few times on those distant hills, to give an impression of trees. You'll need to be fairly discreet with this.
11. Click on Raster 4 (mountains and water). Create another layer (Raster 7) so it stays right above Raster 4. Choose Cloud 1 for your tube, leave at 100. Click below the bottom of the mountains just a few times (I did two clicks) to get a misty effect around the mountains and the furthest hills. This can also help give a sense of distance.
12. Click on Raster 2 and add new layer, Raster 8. This is where you can add some vegetation, such as grasses. It is at the moment the uppermost layer, so whatever you put here will be over the top of everything else so far.
13. Click on Raster 6 and add new layer, Raster 9. Choosing the Hills tube again, scale it at 15, and just add a few mor hills in the distance in front of the lower parts of the mountains. NOW here's a little trick! Richt click on Raster 9 and Choos Properties, and where you have Blend Mode, choose Hard Light. You will see that this changes your distant hills into a lighter colour, as though the sun is spotlighting them.
NOTE: You can try this out with other layers, choosing different properties to see what results you get, but bear in mind that you will mostly get underneath layers showing through. What lies underneath a layer will always make a difference to your result when using this facility. I use this facility a lot in my work, and it is one of the most important reasons for working in layers.
14. OK, now click on Raster 2 and go to Enhance Photo and choose Clarify. I chose 5 (max) for this purpose. You will see how this brings clarity and presence, together with a little lightening of tones, to the foreground hills.
15. Let's add some soft clouds. Click on Raster 1 and add another layer, Raster 10. Now choose Cloud 02, take it down to 20, and add a few clouds so that they look fairly realistic. However, they will look rather harsh, so Right click on Raster 10, Choose Properties and Soft Light Blend Mode. You'll see the difference this makes.
16. Now we'll add a little sun! Sunlight, and many other effects, will only work on a solid type of surface. We therefore need to click on Raster 1, the background colour. Now Go to Effects, Illumination Effects and choose Sunburst. Here are my settings for this picture..
In the left side window I have the cross situated at Horizontal 5, Vertical 1 (these figures show up inside the dialogue box you are now looking at). The Density is set at 43, Brightness at zero, as we don't want sharp sunrays coming down onto this somewhat misty scene. Brightness (Circle) is also set to zero. The colour of the sun is R254, G 254 and B 220. A very pale yellow.
Now we come to the final stages of our picture before we start merging layers, or whatever we finally wish to do with it. This is to use some of the tools available, such as the Lighten/darken tool, Push tool, soften tool, Smudge tool and so on, in order to change shapes, accentuate areas, and so on. Using the smudge tool, you can gently stretch the lower surfaces of the hills, in their respective layers, so that they appear to reflect into the water.
Experiment with them, you'll find it fun to do, but make sure you keep saving your work at each stage, so that if you go too far with something, you can always either undo, or actually close the picture and re-open it at the last saved stage.
REMEMBER: When you start to merge down your layers (if that's what you decide to do) you cannot merge a two layers where the properties have been changed without this affecting both the layers.
______________________________
Basically I finished this picture off using the methods just mentioned, adding a couple more layers where I felt I needed to add extra bits of land or effects; I then cheated a little and used a filter on layer Raster 1, from Filters Unlimited, in order to change the ambience of it, as I didn't feel too happy with the rather gawdy colouring. (Link HERE (http://www.icnet.de/filters_unlimited/index.html) to download a trial version - it isn't all that expensive to buy and will give you many more features that can be continually added to.) I also selected the water area in the appropriate layer, and applied the same filter to it.
ENJOY!!
Written by AnnaKirsten 16th October 2005