Old School Forum Tag - Rain Rain, Go Away

This tutorial was written on 08/31/2013 and assumes you have working knowledge of PSP. Any simularities to other tuts is purely coincidental and not done on purpose.

For this tutorial you will need:

PSP - I use X3 but most versions will do

Animation Shop

Mura Meister Copies

Xenofex 2 Fluffy Little Clouds

Eye Candy 4000 Gradient Glow

Tube of choice, I used the art of Anna Liwanag.

You can purchase this tube at CDO. Do not use without purchasing a license first.

Wordart by me and rain animation here

Font of choice, I used Beatrice

Open a new image 600 x 250. Copy your tube and paste as a new layer. Apply Mura Meister Copies, Wallpaper Rotate. If your canvas isn't completely covered, undo and apply again until it's all covered.

Apply a radial blur with Zoom ticked, strength at 50 and Elliptical checked. All other options at 0. Go to Image, Flip.

Add a new raster layer, rename this layer Clouds. Apply Xenofex 2, Fluffly Little Clouds. Click on Settings and click on Factory Default and click ok. Then click on Cloud Mode and change to Fluffy.

Change the blend mode of Overlay and lower the opacity to 50%.

Open your rain image. Copy the Rain 1 layer and paste as a new layer on your tag. Repeat with rain 2 and rain 3. Rename the rain layers from the bottom rain 1, rain 2 and rain 3. Hide layer 2 and 3 for now. *Note, I mirrored all 3 layers of rain so they were going in the same direction of my tube's umbrella, but this is optional*

Now with rain 3 active, copy your tube and paste as a new layer. I moved her so she was slighly off center so she covers the point of the zoom. Give her a drop shadow of -3, 3, 70, 10. Repeat the drop shadow 1, -2, 50, 5.

Add a new raster layer. Select all and flood fill with black or a dark color from your tube. Contract by 1, add a new raster layer and flood fill with a contrasting color. I chose the red from my tube's lips. Contract by 3, add a new raster layer again and flood fill with black again. Contract by 1 and press delete on all 3 layers. You may now deselect.

Activate the middle colored layer. Give it some noise at Random, 20%, monochrome checked. Now activate the top layer and merge down twice. Rename this layer border.

Apply Eye Candy 4000, Gradient Glow. Change the Glow Width on the Basic tab to 3, Then on the Color tab click on Thin and change the color to black.

Add wordart or text of choice to the larger size of the tag. I used Beautiful ES and Beautiful Caps ES to make mine. Arrange where desired.

Add your copyright info, license and tagger's mark.

Add your name using font of choice. Since my tag is so dark I used white for both foreground and background with the stroke width at 0.5. Give it a bit of noise at the same settings as your border but change the number to 40. Give it the same gradient glow as you did the frame, but move the top slider over about to where the little dropper icon sits. Then give your name a drop shadow, I used -2, 2, 50, 5.

To Animate:

The rain 2 and rain 3 layers should still be hidden. Copy merged and paste as a new animation in AS. Back to PSP, hide rain 1 and unhide rain 2. Copy merged and paste AFTER current frame. Back to PSP, hide rain 2 and unhide rain 3. Copy merged and again past AFTER current frame.

Save your tag and Congrats, you're done!

Old School Tut - Puzzle Fade

This tutorial was originally written by me back in 2007, this rewrite was written on 08/22/2013 and assumes you have working knowledge of PSP. Any simularities to other tuts is purely coincidental and not done on purpose.

For this tutorial you will need:

PSP - I use X3 but most versions will do

Animation Shop

Xenofex 2 - Puzzle

Eye Candy 4000 - Gradient Glow

Tube with matching image - I used the artwork of Rachel Anderson.

You can purchase this tube at CDO. Do not use without purchasing a license first.

Font of choice - I used Passion Conflict ROB

Open your tube and matching image. Duplicate both and close originals. Copy tube and paste onto your image, resize till it's the same size as the image and align it up so it fits on your image. I had to resize my tube down 78% so it fit just right.

Give your tube a drop shadow of -3, 0, 65, 10. Merge down and then duplicate. Give the duplicate layer a gaussian blur of 5.

Run your Xenofex 2, Puzzle filter with default settings. You should have something like this:

Add a new raster layer and flood fill with a color from your image. Select all, contract by 2 and press delete. Deselect. Give your border some noise at Random, 40% and monochrome checked.

Add a new raster layer again, this time flood fill with black. Select all, contract by 2, delete and deselect. Move this layer under your border with the noise. Give it a gaussian blur of 3.

Activate the top layer in your palette, should be the border with noise. Add your copyright, license and tagger's mark.

Add your name using font of choice, colors from your tube/image. Give it an inner bevel of choice. I used:

Then I gave it a slight gradient glow:

And then a drop shadow of -2, 2, 50, 5.

Copy merged and paste as a new animation into AS.

Now activate the layer that has the puzzle pieces. Run the puzzle filter again but click on the button that says 'Knockout 10% Remaining' 2 times and click on the Lighting tab and change the Groove Darkness to 10.

Copy merged and paste AFTER current frame in AS. Go back to psp, run the filter and click the Knockout button again 2 times. Again, copy merged and paste AFTER current frame.

Repeat these steps until almost all pieces are left. The filter doesn't really remove the last bits, so when you have just a little bit left, then hide that layer and copy merged and paste after current frame.

Now click on your second to last frame. I have 10 frames so I'll click on frame 9. Scroll back to the beginning. Hold down shift and click on frame 2. Now all the frames from 2 to 9 are highlighted. Copy, then go back to your last frame, click on it and paste AFTER current frame again. Then go up, click on Animation and click on Reverse Frames.

Select all, press Alt Enter to bring up the Frame Properties box. Change the speed to 15. Click on your frame with no puzzle pieces so it's the only highlighted frame. Bring up the frame properties box again and change the speed for this frame to 100. Scroll back and click on frame 1, change the speed for this frame to 50.

Save your tag and Congrats, you're done!

New Old School Tut - Falling Leaves

Hello everyone. I have a new exclusive tut over at Creative Addictions. This uses the art of Jessica Dougherty, which you can buy at CDO. 

Remember, you don't need to be a member of CA to view my exclusive tuts and even guests can post their results. I loved to see anything you make from any of my tutorials.