printairbrush

Airbrush Tool

The Airbrush Tool is very versatile, This is just one way I use it.

For this tutorial you will need Paint Shop Pro 7

A tube of your choice.

Open a new canvas by clicking on the New icon

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To find your tube, go to File > Browse

Browse to the folder where you saved your tube and double click on it to open it in PSP

Right click on the bar at the top of your tube canvas and click on copy

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Click on the bar at the top of your new canvas and right click. Click on Paste As New Layer

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You will now have a copy of the tube on your new canvas

You can now close the original tube so you'll have it to use again and again :o)

We're going to do the text next. On your colour palette, click in the middle of the top Styles box and keep your mouse button pressed until a little window opens. Click on the paintbrush, this is solid colour.

Click on the Dropper Tool

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Move the dropper over a part of your tube

On your colour palette, the box at the bottom changes colour as you move the dropper tool over your tube

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When you've found a colour you like, right click once and the colour will go into the bottom Styles box. (If you wanted the colour to go in the top Styles box, you'd left click.)

Now Click your Text Tool icon and click on your canvas

The text entry box will open

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Type your text in the box then highlight it and choose your font and text size

Make sure anti-alias and vector are checked

Click ok

Your text will have a box round it with little squares on the corners and in the middle of each side. These are called nodes. Move your mouse over a node on the right hand side and it will turn into a double headed arrow, with your mouse, left click and drag the node out. You will see your text stretches.

Do the same on the other side and the top and bottom until your text is the size you want it

On your layer palette, right click on the top layer and choose Convert to raster layer

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Ok, we need the text to be under the tube so go to your layer palette, click on the top layer, keep your mouse button pressed and drag the top layer under the middle layer.

Click on the top layer to make it the active layer (should be layer 2 now)

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Click on the Mover Tool and move your tube to where you want it. I placed mine so it sat on the text.

Let's apply an inner bevel to our text

Click on the text layer in the layer palette to make it the active layer

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Click on the Inner Bevel icon and use the following settings

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(Note: I saved this settings because I liked the effect and wanted to be able to use them again. Click on the Save As button and name it, I named mine text.)

Click Ok

We now need to add a new layer to add the effects of the airbrush. Go to Layers > New Raster layer.

When the new window opens name the new layer Airbrush

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Click OK

Click on the Airbrush Tool

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and use the following settings

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Click on your foreground colour box and choose Solid colour

In your colour palette choose a slightly darker colour than the one you used for your text by clicking on the little circle in the colour wheel and moving it until you find a colour you like

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Click Ok

Now airbrush all over your picture. You don't have to worry about airbrushing on the picture because the airbrush effect is on it's own layer.

Ok, let's get the layers in the right order so it doesn't look as if you've painted all over your tube and doll!

Click on the airbrush layer and drag under the tube and text layers

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You will now have this

Change the colour in your foreground box to a slightly lighter colour and change your airbrush size to the following

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Ok, now airbrush all over again, it's up to you how much you want to put on

Again, change your foreground colour to a lighter colour and airbrush on your canvas

Ok, we're done with the airbrush, let's add an effect to our background

Go to Effects > Texture Effects > Texture and choose Mosaic Antique

Use the following settings

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Click Ok

Ok, it's a bit big so let's resize it!

Go to Image > Resize and use the following settings (you can make it smaller or bigger if you wish, in-fact, you don't even have to resize at all, it's up to you ;o)

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The last thing to do is to put a background on the sig because if we try and save it in Animation Shop as a .gif, the optimiser will make a mess of the effect. By putting a background on, we can save in PSP as a .jpg

Click on the bottom layer

I usually flood fill this layer with white because I mainly use my sigs in MSN groups but for this one I've put it on pink to complement the colours in the sig.

Save your sig as a .jpg and you're done :o)

Note: When you choose to save as a .jpg the following warning will appear

'Because of the limitations of the specified file format, (and possibly the save options you've selected) the saved file will be limited to a merged image. Would you like to continue?'

Click Yes.

What the warning means is... because you've chosen to save your sig, which is in layers, as a .jpg, the layers will be merged to become one layer.

.jpg files don't support layers like .psp files and .gif files so the layers have to be merged.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial