Valentine - Old School, No Scraps

This tutorial was written by me on 01/13/2015 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 Jasmine Becket-Griffith

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

Ding font ess_bgalore

(I have searched all over the internet, can NOT find this font anywhere by this name or any other, if you or someone you know owns it, please let me know asap and I'll credit them and/or remove it.)
Mura Meister Copies
Xero Fritillary, Porcelain, Radiance
Mask84 by WSL

Font of choice, I used Volante

Let's begin, remember to save often.

Open a new workspace 600 x 600. Flood fill white. Click on your text tool and find your ding font. Select a nice medium dark color from your tube for your foreground, I used #870018, stroke 1. Background a slightly lighter color, I used #c6436f. Click inside your canvas, type a lower case e or other letter of choice. Highlight the shape in the text entry box, change the size to 300. This is what I used for my tag, you might want differently depending on your shape and tube.

Move the shape to about the center of your canvas and convert to raster. Rename this layer Shape. Give it an inner bevel of choice, I used this one:

Copy your tube and paste as a new layer. Duplicate your tube, hide the original for now and move the duplicate under your shape layer. Apply Mura Meister Copies, wallpaper rotate at default settings. Resize this layer 80%, all layers unchecked. Give it a gaussian blur of 10. If desired, move it so the part you like best is whithin the center of the shape. I ended up rotating mine 90 degrees to the right.

Activate your shape layer again. Click inside the very center with your magic wand. Expand by 3. Invert selection, activate the blurred layer and press delete. Deselect. Rename this layer Blur.

With your blurred layer still active, add a new raster layer. Activate your shape layer again. This time you're going to click within open space outside the center:

Activate blank layer you made under your shape, flood fill with a light color from your tube. I used #e26293. Rename this layer Shape Fill. Apply Xero, Fritillary at default settings but change the Variation to 25.

Give your shape layer a drop shadow of 0, 0, 100, 3.

Activate and unhide your original tube layer, should be top layer in your palette. I arranged mine so it looks like she's sitting on the bottom inner edge of my shape.

Duplicate your tube. On the original apply Xero Porcelain at default settings but move the blue slider to 0. On the duplicate, apply Xero Radience at the settings below, change the blend mode to soft light or one that looks good with your tube and lower the opacity to 50%.

Activate the original tube layer again. Give her a drop shadow of -3, 3, 60, 10. Repeat the drop shadow at 1, -1, 50, 5.

Hide the white background layer. Copy merged and paste back into your canvas as a new layer. Move this merged layer to just above the white layer. Give it a gaussian blur of 5. Then give it a radial blur at Spin, Strength at 10, Elliptical checked and all other options at 0.

Add mask from image, merge group. If necessary, use the raster deform tool to make sure the mask is slightly larger then your tube and/or shape, this will ensure you don't crop off any part of your tube, shape or drop shadows. Crop layer opaque.

If you wish to resize your tag, do it now. I resized 85%, all layers checked.

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

Add your name, I used the same colors I did for the shape. Give it an inner bevel of choice, again I used the same as for the shape. Apply a thin white gradient glow. Finally give your name a drop shadow, I used -2, 2, 50, 5.

Delete the white background layer, merge visible and save as a png. Or merge all and save as a jpg. Congrats, you're done!