Winter Wonderland

This tut was written in PSP X3 but can be done in other versions too. I used the artwork of PinUpToons. You must have a license to use his work.

Supplies:

Winter Blues Scrap Kit from Pink Princess Scraps. You can find it here.

The frame I got from a kit at Scraps Dimensions. You can find the kit here. Yes it's a Valentine's kit but we're going to colorize it so it won't matter. I like it for the shiny bevel.

The snowman came from a kit by Silvia at the Creative Misfits blog. You can find the kit here. It's about 3/4 of the way down the page, the kit is titled 'Have A Misfit Xmas'.

Wonderland wordart by me here.

VanDerLee Snowflakes plugin. You can download for free here. Install it into your plugin folder in my documents.

Mask of choice. I used one from Vix. It's Mask433. It's in the Christmas 2009 collection on her site here.

Tube of choice.

Font of choice, I used FrancineHmk. You can download it here.

Animation Shop

Open a new workspace 800 x 700, flood fill white. We'll resize it later. Open your frame from the Sweet Valentine kit. (Be sure every time you open something new {tube, element, paper, etc} that you shift D to make a duplicate and close the original each time). Copy and paste as a new layer on your canvas. Remember to save your work periodically as you go.

Now we're going to change the color of the frame to match your tube. This is easy. Click on the foreground color box, and click on a dark color on your tube to get a matching color for your frame. When you have a color selected look on the material properties box and take note of the Hue and Saturation numbers. You can use the same color I used in the screenshot below if you'd like.

Now go to Adjust, Hue and Saturation, Colorize. Enter the hue and saturation numbers in the boxes and click ok. Your frame is now changed in color.

Selections, Select all. Selections, Float. Selections, Defloat. Now open a paper of choice, I used paper 13. Copy and paste as a new layer on your canvas. Selections, Invert and hit delete on your keyboard. Deselect. Change the blend mode on the paper to Screen. Your frame will now look like this.

Now take your magic wand and click inside your frame. Selections, Modify, expand by 10. Select another paper from your kit. I used paper 12. Copy and paste as a new layer on your canvas. Move this layer below your original frame layer. Selections, Invert and hit delete. Deselect.

Activate the bottom layer in your palette which should be the white layer. Select a new paper from your kit, I used paper 4. Duplicate and close original. It's a bit smaller then the canvas so resize it up 115%, all layers checked. Copy and paste as a new layer on your canvas. Make sure your mask is open but minimized. Go to Layers, New mask layer, From image. Find the mask in the drop down menu. Source luminance checked, invert mask data unchecked, click ok. Then go to Layers, merge group.

Click on your raster deform tool and drag the top and bottom nodes in a little so it's not so high above and below your frame. Then drag the nodes on the left and right side out a bit so you can see the mask better. You might have to play with it a bit to get it how you like it.

Activate the paper layer below your frame. Open the white tree element. Copy and paste onto your canvas. Resize 70%, Bicubic, All Layers Unchecked. Move to one side of the frame where you like it. Duplicate and mirror. Now duplicate the tree again and move the 3rd one into the center and resize 70% and move this layer below the first tree layer so it looks like it's in the distance a bit. I also chose to move mine over a bit so it isn't directly in the center.

Hide all layers except the 3 tree layers and merge visable. Unhide all layers. Activate the original frame layer. Click on your magic wand and click outside the frame. Selections, Modify, Expand by 10 like we did before. Now activate the tree layer and hit delete to remove any excess outside the frame. Deselect.

Open your snowman tube from the Creative Misfit kit and paste as a new layer above the tree layer but again below the frame, resize 50%. Move him where you'd like him to be.

Now activate the top layer in your layer palette which should be the frame layer with the paper. Open element 20 from your kit, the corner swag. Copy and paste as a new layer on your canvas, resize 50%. Move into position on one corner, duplicate and mirror. Make sure the top layer with your duplicated swag is activated and merge down one time.

Open your main tube,copy and paste onto your convas as a new layer. Resize if needed. My tube was smaller then I wanted it to be so I resize it up about 110%. Move it where you want it to go, I mirrored mine too so she was facing the other direction.

Now let's start adding some drop shadows. Let's start with the tree layer. Horizontal and Vertical 1, Opacity 60, Blur 5. Repeat drop shadow to the snowman and swag layers. Give the main tube a slightly darker drop shadow with the horizontal and vertical at 2.

Now activate the original frame layer. Give it the same drop shadow as you did the tube. Then repeat with the horizontal and vertical at -2. Activate the top layer on your canvas.

Open your wonderland wordart. It's saved as a psp file with 2 layers. Duplicate and close the original as you have everything else. Now if you want to use it as the same color as it is skip to this step and go onto the next one. If you want to change the text color, here's how: You're going to use your Manual Color Correction tool. If you do not have this wonderful tool on your Tools bar go up to View, Customize and under Catagories, click on Unused Commands. Then in the right box scroll down till you find the Manual Color Correction and click and drag it to your Tools bar.

Now make sure your working just on your wordart here. The top layer should be activated. Click on your Manual Color Correction tool. Make sure Manual target color is ticked. Left click on the colored part of one of the letters to get that color in the Source box. Then right click on a color from your tube to put that color in your Target box. Click ok and it'll change the text to the new color.

Continue from this step whether you changed the color or not. Now copy merged and paste as new layer on your canvas. Move this layer under the layer with your tube. Use your mover tool to drag it so it's sitting below your frame.

Activate the top layer again, should be the main tube. Select your font, using foreground and background colors from your tube, add the word Winter. If using the font I used, the size is 100 and the colors I used are white for the foreground and #59809a for the background. I placed it to the bottom right of my frame. Give it the same drop shadow as your main tube but change the opacity to 50. Now using the same font and colors, add your name and place it where you like it. I chose to put mine at the top of the frame.

Add your copyright info and watermark if you have one.

Now activate the original frame layer. Click inside with your magic wand and expand by 12. Activate the layer directly below it which should be the snowman. Add a new raster layer and label it snow. Do not deselect yet. Duplicate the snow layer for a total of 3 layers. Click the first snow layer and go to Effects, Plugins, VanDerLee, Snowflakes. Use the settings below.

Now activate the 2nd snow layer. Repeat with snowflakes but move the random seed bar over some. Repeat with the 3rd snow layer, moving the random seed bar over some more. Deselect.

Activate your mask layer. Click on your crop tool and on the tool options bar where it says Snap crop rectangle. Click on Layer Opaque. Drag the bottom node down so it doesn't crop off the wordart. Double click on the canvas to crop. If you crop off too much, undo and try again. Resize 80% all layers checked.

Now to animate: Hide the 2nd and 3rd snow layers. Copy merged and paste as a new layer in Animation Shop. Go back to psp, hide the first snow layer and unhide the 2nd. Copy merged again and paste AFTER current frame in AS. Go back to psp again and hide the 2nd snow layer and unhide the 3rd. Copy merged again and paste after current frame. Select all, press Alt Enter to bring up the frame properties box and change the frame speed to 25. Resize again if you want it smaller still or save it as it is. Congrats, you're done!

©2010 Queina. All rights reserved. Any simularities to any other tutorials is purely coincidental.