FTU Forum Set - Shimmering Elegance

This tutorial was written on 03/09/2014 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

Tube of choice, I used the art of Jennifer Janesko

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

Template 83 by Spawn

Dave makes awesome templates so be sure to leave some love when you download

Xero, Porcelain and Radiance

 Eye Candy 4000, or any other filter with a gradient glow

Font of choice, I used Centeria Script Demo

Let's begin, remember to save often!

Open forum template and tube, duplicate both and close the originals. On your template, delete the credits layer. Activate the main background layer. Select 2 colors from your tube. I used a dark brown for my foreground, #201611 and a lighter goldish brown for the background, #75551e.

Flood fill your background layer with the darker color. Now activate the Small Rounded Squares layer. Create a foreground-background gradient with linear, angle 45, repeats 4, invert unchecked. Add a new raster layer and flood fill with your gradient. Activate the squares layer again. Select all, float, defloat and invert. Activate your flood filled layer, press delete and deselect. Activate the original squares layer and press delete once on your keyboard. Activate the flood filled layer once more and merge down.

Now activate your shape background layer, select all, float and defloat. Flood fill with your lighter color. Copy your tube and paste it as a new layer. If your tube has a closeup layer, use that, otherwise you can resize it up like I did. I resized mine 115%. I arranged her so I could see her head inside the frame but you could use another part of the tube if you wish. Apply Xero, Porcelain at default but move the blue slider to 0. Give her a drop shadow, I used 0, 0, 60, 5. Now activate the shape outline layer. Click inside with your magic wand and expand by 3. Invert selection, activate your tube layer, press delete and deselect. Activate the outline layer again and give it a drop shadow. I used 0, 0, 100, 10.

Now paste your tube as a new layer again, I mirrored her and moved her over so I could see the closeup plus my tube has her legs cut off on the end. Once you have it where you like it, duplicate this layer. On the original, apply the porcelain filter again, then on the duplicate apply Xero Radiance with these settings:

Change the blend mode on the duplicate to Luminance. Then give the bottom tube a drop shadow of -3, 3, 80, 10. I then repeated my drop shadow with 1, -2, 50, 5.

Now activate the border layer. Select all, float and defloat. You'll need to zoom in so you can see it well and flood fill black. Do not deselect. Zoom back out to 100%. Add a new raster layer, name it gradient, flood fill with your gradient but invert the colors so the lighter color is the foreground. Contract your selection by 4 and press delete. Do not deselect yet. Add a new raster layer, name it border 2, flood fill with black again, contract by 1 and press delete. You may now deselect.

Now add a new raster layer again, name it border shadow. Select all, flood fill with black. Contract by 6 and press delete. Deselect. Drag this layer under the first border layer and give it a gaussian blur of 3.

Now activate your gradient border layer, duplicate 2 times for a total of 3 layers. Rename them from the bottom as gborder1, gborder2 and gborder 3. Activate the first one and add noise at random, 40%, monochrome checked. Activate the 2nd gradient border and add noise but change it to 43%. Repeat with the 3rd gradient border and the noise at 46%. Hide the top 2 gradient border layers for now.

Now go down and activate your rounded squares layer, duplicate this layer twice for a total of 3 layers. Rename them from the bottom up as squares 1, squares 2 and squares 3. Starting with squares 1, give this layer a bit of noise at gaussian, 10% and monochrome still checked. Repeat noise on square 2 with the noise at 13% and then on square 3 with the noise at 16%. Hide squares 2 and 3 for now.

Activate the top layer in your palette, should be the border 2 layer. Add your copyright info, license and tagger's mark.

Add your name using the same colors as before, turn off the gradient and switch the darker color back to the foreground again. Give it an inner bevel, I used this one:

Then give it a light gradient glow, I used these settings, the color is #c4b26f, but you'll want to pick a light color that compliments your tube, I chose mine from her outfit she's wearing:

 

 Then give your name a drop shadow of -2, 2, 60, 8.

Now to animate:

Make sure your gborder 2 and gborder 3 are hidden. Also you want squares 2 and squares 3 hidden as well. With the top layer in your palette (should be your name) active, copy merged. Go over to animation shop and paste as a new animation, I use CTRL V.

Go back to psp, unhide gborder 2 and squares 2. Again copy merged, over to AS. This time you want to paste AFTER current frame, easy way to do that is to press SHIFT CTRL L.  

Then back to psp again, this time unhide gborder 3 and squares 3. Copy merged and over in AS paste AFTER current frame again. Save your tag, you're done!

Optional - Make a matching avatar:

Go back to your tag, duplicate so you don't mess up your original and delete every layer above the squares 3 layer and activate this layer.

Open a temporary new workspace 150 x 150. Select all, flood fill with black, contract by 1 and press delete. Deselect. Copy this and paste as a new layer onto your forum tag duplicate. Click on your raster deform tool to make it easier to move it where you want the background to show through.

You should now have only 5 layers in your palette. From the bottom: main background, squares 1 2 and 3, and the thin black frame you just pasted. With this top layer still active, click on your crop tool, it should snap to around the frame, if it doesn't click on layer opaque on the tools options menu. Double click or click the green check mark to crop. You can now close the temporary 150 x 150 we opened up cause we no longer need it.

Now on your avatar, you're going to make the border like you did before. Rename the little black border to border 1. Click inside with your magic wand, add a new raster layer, flood fill with your gradient again. Contract by 4 and press delete. Keep selected, add a new raster layer and flood fill with black. Contract by 1, press delete and deselect. Rename this top little black border as border 2 and rename the gradient layer as gborder like before. You can repeat the border drop shadow like we did before with the forum tag if you wish.

Now activate the squares 3 layer and paste your tube as a new layer, I mirrored mine so she was going the same direction as the forum tag. Then lined her up within the frame where I wanted her, duplicated this layer, applied the porcelain to the bottom and radiance to the duplicate and change the blend mode on the duplicate to Luminance like we did before. And then give the bottom tube layer a drop shadow of 0, 0, 70, 10.

Now back up to your gborder layer again, I wanted it animated like my forum tag so I duplicated it 2 times for a total of 3, renamed them as before and added the noise with the same amounts as before, which were random, monochrome checked and 40%, 43% and 46% from the bottom up. Remember to hide gborder 2 and 3 when you're done.

Activate the top layer in your palette, should be border 2. Add your copyright and license info. Now since this is an avatar, url's are not required.

Add your name or your initial using the same font and colors as your forum tag. Give it the same bevel, gradient glow and drop shadow as before also. Then follow the same animation instructions as you did your forum tag and save your avatar. Congrats, you're done!