Christmas Cardinal - FTU Scraps

This tutorial was written by me on 12/16/2014 and assumes you have working knowledge of PSP. Any similarities to other tuts is purely coincidental and not done on purpose.

 

 For this tut you will need:

PSP - I use version X3 but most versions will do

Tube of choice - I'm using the artwork of Melissa Dawn.

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

CDO Grab Bag Freebies: Grab718 (frame), 1128 (bow) and g125 (paper, elements)

Font of choice, I used Nadine Script Extra

Filters used:

Mura Meister Copies
Mehdi Sorting Tiles
Xero Mistifier and Porcelain
Eye Candy 4000 Gradient Glow

Let's begin, remember to save as you go.

Open frame and tube in psp. Duplicate all and close the originals.

Starting with the frame, bring up the resize box. Change the resolution to 72 Pixels/Inch. Then change the pixel dimensions to 100%, be sure all layers is checked and click ok.

Change the canvas size to 600 wide, 700 high with center placement. Add a new raster layer, flood fill with white and move to the bottom of your layer palette.

Copy your tube and paste as a new layer. Move it below your frame layer if it isn't already. Apply Mura Meister Copies with Wallpaper Rotate at default settings.

Give this layer a gaussian blur at 10. Duplicate your blur layer. On the duplicate, apply Mehdi Sorting Tiles with these settings:

Change the blend mode of the tiled layer to Screen. Change the opacity of the original layer to 90%.

Activate the tiled layer again. Apply Xero Mistifier with the haziness at 246, the strength at 195 and everything else at 255.

Now activate your frame layer. Click inside with your magic wand, expand by 5. Invert selection, click on your tiled layer, press delete. Activate the original blurred layer, press delete and deselect.

Activate your frame layer again. Select all, float, defloat. Open paper of choice, copy and paste as a new layer on top of your frame. Invert the selection and press delete. Deselect.

Merge the paper layer down onto the frame layer. Give it a slight inner bevel, I used this one:

Then give the frame a drop shadow, I used 0, 0, 80, 15.

Now we're going to copy our tube, paste as a new layer. Move it under the frame layer for now. My tube is cut off on the left side, so I'm going to move it over slightly to the left so you don't see the cut off part. Don't worry if you can see part of the tube through the holes of the frame, we'll fix that later.

On your tube apply Xero, Porcelain at default settings but be sure to move the blue slider to 0. Now give it a drop shadow. I use -3, 3, 60, 10. Then repeat the drop shadow but change the settings to 1, -1, 50. 5.

Let's take the time right now to resize our tag, cause it's just huge. I resized mine 80% all layers checked.

Now move your tube layer back on top of the frame layer again. Activate your selection tool. Now you're going to draw around the part of the tube that extends over the left side of the frame. (or right if yours is on that side). Be sure you go a little past the boundary, like below:

Now promote the selection to layer. Do NOT deselect yet. Activate the original tube layer, press delete 1 time and now you may deselect. Move the promoted layer under the frame.

If you can see parts of the promoted layer through the little frame holes then just select around those parts and press delete one time. Deselect.

Activate your main tube layer again. Should be on the top of your layer palette. You can now add any elements you like.

From Grab Bag g125, I used ele2, resized 40%. (be sure to uncheck the all layers box) Ele5, 30% and mirrored. Ele4, 50%. Ele3, 40% arrange at bottom, duplicate and flip, arrange at the top.

From Grab Bag 1128, I used ele1, 15%

Give all of your elements a drop shadow of -2, 2, 50, 5.

Now activate the bottom blurred layer under your frame. Select all, float, defloat. Activate the white background layer, invert selection and press delete, deselect. You need that white layer because you lowered opacity on the blurred layer and otherwise it'll look weird if it's on a colored background.

Now it's time to crop off the excess empty space around our tag. You're going to want to make sure you don't crop off any parts of tubes and drop shadows. Best way I've found to do this is to start on one side and activate the layer that sticks out the farthest. So I start with the left side and for me the red bow on top of the silver ornament sticks out farthest. So I click on my crop tool. It automatically snaps around the bow. If it doesn't you'll need to click on the "Snap crop rectangle to: Layer Opaque". I then use the nodes on the crop box to drag the top line all the way to the top of the canvas. The bottom line all the way to the bottom and the right line all the way to the right and click apply.

Now pick the layer that extends farthest on the right. For me that's the double ribbon under my main tube. So I leave the right border of the crop box where it is and drag the top, bottom and left sides all the way to the edge of the canvas and click apply.

Now we're going to do the same thing with the top and the bottom in the same fashion as before. For me those layers are the strings of Christmas lights. Though I gave it slightly more room on the bottom so there's enough room for when I add names.

By cropping in this fashion, doing each of the 4 sides individually, you insure that nothing ever gets accidentally cropped off. Especially drop shadows.

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

Add your name, I used the same color from my tube for both foreground and background. Give it a bevel of choice, I used:

Then give your name a gradient glow. I used these settings with the glow width at 3:

And then finally apply the same drop shadow you used for your elements.

Merge visible and save as a png or merge all and save as a jpg. Congrats, you're done!