For You Valentine

Time for another of my tutorials... This tutorial is done using PSP 9 but can use other versions as well.. with a few adjustments. Assuming you have a working knowledge of PSP tools and such.

Drag this 'I'm Here' arrow

You can use a tube of your choice.. In this I used the wonderful artwork of ©Lola Palacios you can her art HERE.

Here is what we are creating today

Well even US tutorial writers make mistakes..*not many confess this* :-) What I did was start designing this 'tag' and making the screen shots and was almost finished and thought I DIDN'T MAKE THE FRAME!!!.. so I had to insert a few screen shots here at the beginning to show how this is done.

1. Open the images named Base Canvas, gold beads and VABkg1. You can minimize the gold beads and VABkg1. On your materials palette, in the foreground/stroke box, choose pattern fill and pick the VABkg1 image, In the background/fill box choose pattern file and choose the gold beads image.

2. Go to IMAGE/ add border--3 pixels Symmetric checked, color Black. Use your Magic Wand, set the tolerance to 20, feather 0 and select the black border. Fill with the gold bead fill that's in the background box.

3. IMAGE again and Add a border--25 pixels symmetric checked, color white. Magic Wand again same settings and select the white frame. Fill with your pattern fill that's in your foreground box. While its still selected apply an Inner bevel using the settings below. Unselect

4. Selections/ Select all --Selections/ Modify/Contract 27 pixels INVERT and apply a 3 D drop shadow V-1 H-2 Opacity 56 Blur 8 Color Black

5. Select on your Preset Shape tool use these settings.

6. Draw out a heart like below, about the same size. Use WHITE in the foreground color box.. and NULL the bkg fill box.

7. Use the middle handle node to turn the heart to your left.. like the below heart.

8. Right click on the new vector layer on your layer palette that's the heart and convert to raster. Selections/Select all/ Float.

9. HERE is where I got the Super Blade Preset for the heart.. I used M_valentineredpeach. When you download these SBP presets.. put them in your mydocs/mypspfiles/plugins/superbladepro/environments folder... ALL files that come with the presets.

10. If you need help with using Super Blade Pro.. refer to my tutorial HERE for that. After you apply SBP to the white heart... apply a 3D drop shadow using these settings below.

11. Copy and paste your girl graphic or what ever you use for inside of the heart.. position it just where you want it.. Use your Magic Wand and be sure your on the heart layer on your layer palette and click on the inside of the heart...

Cause we put a shadow on it. the selection will not be touching the sides of the heart... to correct this.. go to Selections/Modify/Expand-- 5 or so pixels.

12. Your selection should look like below here in the sample, After you expand selection.

13. BE SURE that your on your girl or graphic layer now.. and Selections/INVERT and click CUT or Delete on the keyboard. Yours should look like below.

14. Its a good habit to always right click on your layers and Rename them... so you will be able to keep up with what's what. Duplicate your HEART layer now 3 times... You need 4 layers of it. Your layer palette should look like below. HIDE the top Heart layer on the layer palette. Like shown.

15. On the 2nd Heart layer down on the layer palette *shown* Use the plugin Xenofex 1.1 Shower Door, with these settings. Do this to the next 2 Heart layers with the same settings.

16. Unhide the Top Heart layer now.. and your canvas should look like below.

17. Copy and paste your flower tube *or whatever you would like to decorate your tag with* on a new layer. Apply a drop shadow on it.. I used #DF455b on this.

18. Click on your preset shape tool with these settings

Draw you out a lil vector heart like shown below right where the impression of the small heart is up at top left of your canvas.

19. Apply Super Blade Pro to the white heart with the same preset as you did the frame heart... be sure and have the small heart selected and floating first.

I used the same preset as the frame heart BUT changed some of the settings.. up at SHAPE top left I changed that.. you can compare this capture to the settings of the peach preset and see the differences.

20. Apply a 3 D drop shadow on the heart.

21. Click on your Pen tool use these settings.

And draw you a squiggly line, kind of like below , use WHITE in the foreground color box and NULL in the bkg box....if you get any sharp corners you can move the nodes around and smooth your line out... when you get it like you want. then right click on the vector line layer and convert to raster.

22. Selections/float the line and go to Effects/Textures/sculpture. Use a gold color with these settings.

23. Apply Xenofex 2 Constellation plugin to the 2nd layer from the top on the layer palette.. that's the 2nd Heart layer.. this plugin will be applied to 3 of the hearts that had the shower door effect on them also.. on first top Heart Shower door layer apply Xenofex 2 with these settings below.

24. On the next two of those Shower door heart layers apply Xenofex 2 with same settings just hit the RANDOM SEED BUTTON EACH TIME... Apply a 3D drop shadow to each of the shower door constellation layers.

25. This might be a lil confusing.. but.. you need to make sure the flower layer is ABOVE the top Heart frame layer. Merge down those two layers.. rename it Top Heart Frame or something so you will know what it is. Then you will have the 3 heart layers that have the shower door and constellation effects applied to them.. on the bottom.. you should have the pink tag bkg layer you started with.. the Girl or graphic layer.. and the small heart.. and chain layer Merge all 4 of those layers together rename bkg. your layer palette should look like this.

26. Now hide 2 of the Shower Constellation layers.. as shown.. RIGHT click on the top of your canvas image.. and click COPY MERGE.

27. Go to Animation shop.. and right click on AS's desktop and paste as New Animation.

28. Go back to PSP and Hide or click the Eye on that Heart #1 layer and unhide the #2 layer. Right click on the top of the image window and COPY MERGE again.. go back to animation shop and right click on your new animation there.. and PASTE/ behind currant frame... back to PSP and unhide the #3 Heart and Hide #2... COPY MERGE again.. back to AS and right click/ Paste/ behind currant frame. You should have 3 FRAMES now in Animation shop.. check to see what your animation looks like with the animation preview button. if it looks good.. then SAVE AS a GIF.. You should use these settings..

Click CUSTOMIZE.

ON THE COLORS TAB.. CHOOSE OPTIMIZED MEDIAN CUT.. UNLESS YOUR MAKING A TRANSPARENT GIF YOU WONT SEE THE PARTIAL TRANSPARENCY TAB.

Well this is the end of this. I hope you enjoyed it and it wasn't confusing... contact me if you have any problems or questions..

Toodles..

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