Monday, November 22, 2010

Slat Tut


This tut was originally written in psp 8, and has been rewritten in psp X3, but can be done in other versions.

Supplies:
Slat tube here
(I did not create any of these, have just collected them over the years. I did convert them all to psd format)
JPG image of choice, I chose a flower image from MorgueFile
Tube of choice, I used a tube by Caron Vinson. You must have a license to use her art.
Font of choice, I used Cocktail Script

Open your slat tube, your jpg and your tube in psp. Open a 500 x 500 transparent workspace in psp. Flood fill raster 1 with white. Copy your slat tube and paste as a new layer on your workspace. Resize larger if needed, all layers UNCHECKED. I resized mine up 120%. Rename this layer slat.

Select All, float, defloat.

On your jpg, press shift d to make a duplicate and close the original. Resize if needed so it's a little bit bigger then your slat. Copy and paste as a new layer on your workspace. Use your mover tool to arrange it how you like it. I moved mine up a bit so the flower was more centered in the slat. Selections, Invert. Hit delete on your keyboard. Deselect. You should now have something like this. Rename this layer slat fill.


Click on your first slat layer in the layer palette and go to Effects, 3d effects, drop shadow, 1, 1, 50, 5.

Activate the slat fill layer. Copy your tube and paste as a new layer on your workspace. Resize if needed, all layers UNCHECKED. Use your mover tool to put it where you like it. Give it a deeper drop shadow than you did the slat. For mine I did -3, -3, 50, 8.

Click on your text tool and select your font, create as vector, size will depend on the length of your name and your chosen font. Pick your foreground and background colors from your tube or your slat fill image. Whichever you think looks best. Click on your workspace and type in your name. Click apply and move into position. Convert to raster. Give it the same drop shadow you did for the slat.

Add a new raster layer and add your copyright information and watermark if you use one.

With your crop tool, click and drag a box around your tag, dragging on the corners or sides to adjust and double click inside the box to crop off the excess, making sure not to cut too close. You don't want to crop off parts of your tag, always be sure to leave a little room around all sides, especially with drop shadows as it really looks horrible when those get cropped off. 

Delete the white raster 1 layer. Merge visible and save as a png. Or merge flat and save as a jpg and you're all done. Congrats!

Tutorial ©2006 Queina. All rights reserved. Any simularities to any other tutorials is purely coincidental.

1 comment:

  1. darn Photobucket any chance for a pdf or word version ?

    ReplyDelete