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A Sculptured Lace Side Background for Easter

©2001

This tutorial created by kiss~


 

I created the above picture tube from a wonderful tutorial found at Skledale House Treasures.

Learn how to create a sculptured lace background to tile your web page for Easter or any other occasion!



This tutorial was made in Paint Shop Pro 6. I have added notes below where the instructions differ for those who are working in Paint Shop Pro 7.

To use this tutorial you will need  the Foreground Fading 02 gradient which comes with Paint Shop Pro 7 as well as my Black Lace picture tube. To download them, click here.

Note: To install this tube in Paint Shop Pro, unzip it to your hard drive, then open Paint Shop Pro. Choose File || Open and browse to where you placed the tube on your hard drive, then click on it so it opens in Paint Shop Pro. Once the tube is opened in PSP, go to File || Export || Picture Tube. In the Cell Arrangement Box, press OK. Your tube should now be installed.

PSP 6 users can install the Fading Foreground 02 gradient by pasting it into the Gradients folder located in their Paint Shop Pro 6 folder. 

PSP7 users probably already have this gradient. But if you can't find it you can paste the one downloaded from here into your Paint Shop Pro 7 Gradients folder which is located in the Jasc Software Inc folder, situated in Program Files. PSP 7 users steps are in blue.
 
 

1. Open an image 400X400 with a white background. Push the selection tool button and in the selection tool pallet, make sure the type of selection is "Rectangle". Feather should be set to "0". In the image, make a rectangular selection which covers approximately the left half side of your image. If in using the selection tool, you can't seem to cover the area, go to Selections || Modify || Expand and expand your selection by one or two pixels so the left hand edge of the image is entirely covered. 
 
 2. Go to the right of your screen and choose your colors for the gradient. Click in the top rectangle to choose the foreground color. I chose the second lightest pink color for the foreground, (Red = 255, Green = 128, Blue = 128, Hue = 0, Saturation = 255, Light = 192). Press OK.

For the background, I chose the second lightest blue. Click on the bottom rectangle to choose your background color. The current color should have these coordinates: Red = 128, Green = 128, Blue = 255, Hue = 170, Sat = 255, Light = 192). Press OK.

Note to PSP7 users: Make sure that Unified Color is selected for both the foreground and background colors by clicking on the little arrow in the color rectangle and selecting the paintbrush on the left.
 
 3. Click on the Flood Fill button and in the Toggle Tool Pallet, set the fill style to Linear Gradient. Press on the little arrow next to the Gradient Box and scroll down until you find the Foreground Fading 02 gradient. Set the angle to 90 and the Repeats to "0'. Now flood fill the selection in your image. Deselect by going to Selections || Select None.

Note to PSP7 users: The angle is not the same as in PSP 6! After clicking on the Flood Fill tool, return to the foreground (Style) color rectangle on the right and click on the little arrow. Choose the Gradient style (the second button from the left). Click in the rectangle and scroll down the Gradient dialogue box until you find the Foreground Fading 02 gradient. Set the fill style to Linear Gradient by clicking on the top style button. Use these settings: Angle = 270, Repeats = 0. Press OK. Now flood fill the selection in your image. Deselect by going to selections || Select None.
 
 4. Go to Layers || New Raster Layer. In the Layer Properties box, you can rename the layer "Lace" if you'd like. It's not necessary to change anything else. Press OK
 
5. Press on the Picture Tube button and in the Tool Options Pallet, scroll down the list until you come to the Black Lace tube and choose it. Click on the image and your lace should appear. Now click on the Mover and position your lace so that it's about 1/4th inch from the right hand side.

Note to PSP 7 Users: To select your Picture Tube, press on the Tool Options Pallet button after pressing on the Picture Tube button.

 
 
6. Before we sculpture the lace, we'll have to make it white, so go to Colors || Adjust... || Brightness/Contrast and slide the brightness arrow all the way to the right to 255. Don't worry about the contrast settings and press OK. Your lace should now be white.

Now we'll sculpture the lace. Go to Image || Effects || Sculpture and in the Pattern box, choose the plain gray pattern at the top. Please use the following settings: 

Size = 100%, Smoothness = 6, Depth = 2, Ambience = 54, Shininess = 46, Light Color = White,  Angle = 315, Intensity = 30, Elevation = 56

Press OK.

Note to PSP 7 Users: To sculpture the lace, go to Effects || Texture Effects || Sculpture and choose the gray box labeled #2.
 
 7. Now we're going to crop the image so it will make a proper seamless side background. Press on the crop tool and draw a rectangle around the lace and the gradient. With your cursor, pull down the top of the black crop rectangle so that it touches the tip of the top little diamond shape on the left hand side of the lace. Don't be alarmed if you're cutting off some of the lace edging. That's okay. I've placed an arrow in the picture on the left to show where the diamond is.

With your cursor, pull up the the bottom crop line so that it touches the tip of the bottom diamond shape on the left of the lace.

Now double click in the black rectangle in your image to crop it.
 
 
  8. If you feel the graphic may be too big for a side border (and I think it is), resize the image by going to Image || Resize and resize it to 75%. It may also be necessary to sharpen the lace, so go to Image || Sharpen || Sharpen. 

Note to PSP 7 Users: To sharpen your image, go to Effects || Sharpen || Sharpen.
 
Last step! We're going to change the canvas size of the graphic so that it can be tiled on a web page as a left side bordered background. First, go to the right hand side of your screen and press on the bottom color rectangle to change the background color. Change the color to white.

Now go to Image || Canvas Size and place 1280 in the new width box. Change the height size so that it is the same as the Current Height size. Uncheck "Center Image Horizontally" and check "Center Image Vertically". In the "Left" box change the number to "0". Press OK.

Go to Layers || Merge || Merge All (Flatten) to merge all your layers.
 


 

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