PTU - Pretty Girl

This tutorial was written on 03/25/2014 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

Tube of choice, I used the art of Cliff Thomas

This tube will soon be available for purchase at CDO. Do not use without purchasing a license first.

Two papers of choice, mine are from IB-CaronVinson-66-1, also from CDO

MB and SW mask 34

Wordart by Creative Misfits

Ding Font FG-Hearts Galore

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

Font of choice, I used Adios Script Pro

Let's begin, remember to save often!

Open new image 700 x 700, we'll resize later. Flood fill white. Click on your text tool, find your ding font in the list, size 225, foreground null, background a color from your tube or kit. I used the dark grey from the kit, #403d48. Click on the center of your canvas, type an uppercase G. I used the nodes to drag it in just a bit on the right and left side and a bit longer on the bottom but this is optional. When you have it like you want it, convert to raster.

Copy your tube and paste as a new layer, line her up on the frame where you like her and then move this layer under the frame layer for now.

Open a paper of choice, I used paper 1. Copy and paste as a new layer. Place this layer under your tube layer and resize it down so it's just slightly larger then your ding frame. Activate the ding layer, click inside with your magic wand, expand by 2 and invert. Activate the paper layer and press delete. Deselect. Activate the ding layer again and give it a drop shadow of 0, 0, 60, 10.

Now activate your tube, give her a drop shadow of -3, 3, 60, 10. Repeat the drop shadow at 1, -1, 50, 5.

Now with your tube layer still active, click on your selection tool and draw around the top part of the tube that's under the top part of the frame. Make sure you fully select around any drop shadows so they won't get cut off in the next step:

Now promote selection to layer. Click on the original while still selected and press delete. Deselect. Move the promoted layer above the frame.

Now activate the original tube layer. Zoom in about 600%. Click on your freehand selection tool, set to point to point. Carefully go along the bottom of the frame and then around any parts of the tube that stick out below the frame like so:

Make sure you go around any drop shadows like in the screenshot above so they get removed properly. When you have the whole area needed selected, press delete and deselect. You can now zoom back out to 100% again.

Activate the white flood filled layer on the bottom. Copy another paper of choice, I used paper 5. Paste as a new layer. Add mask from image, merge group. My mask was a bit too large so I resized it down 85% and then aligned it up with the frame using the raster deform tool. I also dragged the top node up so it extends a bit beyond the tube's head and drop shadow.

When you have your mask where you like it, duplicate and change the blend mode of the duplicate layer to multiply. You might need to use a different blend mode depending on the paper you chose to get the results you like. Merge down and yes it lightens the mask a tad, I wanted it to do that.

Now with your mask layer still active, click on your crop tool. Make sure no parts of your tag will be chopped off especially drop shadows and crop layer opaque. Now if you wish to resize your tag, now is the time to do it, I resized mine down 85%, all layers checked.

Activate the top layer in your palette, should be the promoted section of your tube. Open up your wordart. Duplicate and close the original. Now working on the wordart, add a new raster layer and flood fill it with a bright color so you can see the wordart easy. Move this layer down. Now activate the wordart layer and using your selection tool, select around the wordart and then crop to selection. I had to zoom in a bit cause I got the top part of the wordart below it and had to erase that. Then copy and paste as a new layer on your tag. Click on your manual color correction tool. Make the source color the grey which is #808080. Then for the target color, I used a bright pink to match the tube, #ee60ba. Move the wordart down to the bottom of the frame (see my tag for reference) and give it a gradient glow with the glow width at 3 and the color tab like below:

Then give the wordart a drop shadow of 0, 0, 50, 5 just to make it stand out a bit better.

Click on your text tool, remember to change the font and size, add your copyright info, license and tagger's mark. Don't forget to credit the scrap kit if required, which it is if you're using the same scraps as me.

Now add your name using colors from your tube. I used the same pink for the background and a darker pink for the foreground. Give it an inner bevel:

Then give it a slight gradient glow with the color tab now like below:

Rotate your name 30 degrees to the left, then give your name a drop shadow of -2, 2, 50, 5. Arrange where you want it. Delete the white background layer, merge visible and save as a png or merge all and save as a jpg. Congrats, you're done!