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Hi Cassel,
Thank you so much!!! I’ve been dealing w/a flare up of one of my illnesses, so I’ve really been slacking in doing my graphics, but I’m trying to slowly get back into it. So, this is the first time I’ve signed into here in months and I saw the notification. I will go to the checklist now, and I really really like the option of checking off the ones I’ve done and my progress.
Again, thank you for this, it’s really helpful!
I’ve been absent for awhile—I just haven’t felt good lately, so the last thing I wanted to do was work on anything.
So, I don’t have anything to show at the moment, but wanted to pop in and say Hi and get caught up. Hope everyone is doing ok! 🙂
Michele, thank you very much!
Lynda, thank you! You’re so lucky that you’ve seen them! I live in the Indianapolis area, so I have yet to see them. It is on my bucket list. Oh and yes, the ones I made are too bright, but once I feel comfortable w/the blurring & placement, I’ll play around with the opacity.
Annie, thank you! And I love the alpha you made!
Thanks Annie! It’s happened to me before also, so I’ll try to remember that as being the possible reason.
I went ahead and posted it again.
Thanks Lynda! I’ll post it again…
This is a very rough draft of the northern lights in a starry sky. (You’ll need to click on the pic to see the stars).
I couldn’t find a starry sky tutorial for PSP, so I looked at a Photoshop tutorial, just had to make a couple adjustments for PSP. I did the starry sky by adding noise to a black canvas and then adjusting the levels (Adjust>Brightness/Contrast>Levels) to get more black & less white, for scattered stars.
Awhile ago, I was playing around in the Particle Shop brush plug-in that came with my PSP2020 and loved what the Ionized brush did, to me it looked like the start of northern lights, so I wanted to try to create a paper.
After creating the northern lights, I added a motion blur, then a gaussian blur. Sidenote: I’m not doing the motion blur correctly, because I wanted a vertical blur, but couldn’t get it right, which is why I added the additional gaussian blur.
This was just practice and not good enough for a paper. I’ll have to play around more.
P.S. If anyone knows a better way to do a starry sky & northern lights, please let me know. And/Or if there is a tutorial for either of those in here, let me know, because I obviously couldn’t find it when I did a search 🙂 .
Let me know what you think, if you think it looks like a good start.
I just posted a comment with a pic, but now I can’t see it. Can anyone see a post from me right above this one?
This is a very rough draft of an attempt at northern lights.
You can’t really see the starry sky with this thumbnail, but if you click on the pic, you can see it. I did the sky by adding noise to a black fill, then adjusting the levels (Adjust>Brightness/Contrast>Levels) to get more black & a random scattering of stars. Then for the northern lights, I used the Ionized brush in the Particle Shop plug-in (which came with my PSP2020). I then added a motion blur, but it didn’t do exactly what I wanted, so I added more blur by using gaussian blur.
(I don’t think I know how to use the motion blur correctly. What I was trying to do was blur the brush stroke in a vertical manner. It did it a little, but not enough, which is when I added the gaussian blur as well.)
Anyway, this is just from playing around & it’s not good enough to use a paper yet, but I wanted to post it here because I think the Ionized brush is really cool.
If anyone has better ideas on how to do northern lights, please let me know. 🙂
P.S. I watched a Photoshop tutorial on how to do the starry sky. Using PSP, I had to play around more with the levels, but the tutorial gave me the gist. If there is a tutorial here on how do a starry sky, let me know, because I would much prefer to follow Cassel’s PSP tutorials, not Photoshop.
I know, I know, I’ve been missing for a few days and now I come back and do a post-a-palooza. 😉
Anyway, Cassel, question for you and/or anyone who can answer…
In my quest to get more glitters, I’ve seen papers on Etsy where they made the glitter paper from a pic of real glitter. I’ve been trying to find out how to do it and make it look really good. I went through your blog posts – about 20 of the 28 pages – and I saw one of your blog posts about extracting objects from an image, to use as an element. That is a great blog, btw, and I’ve saved it. (Really, all your blog posts are great 🙂 ) What I’m wondering is if you would suggest that for using real glitter to make a paper from? Is it just a matter of getting the lighting right when I take the pic? Or is there a different way you suggest to use pics of real glitter?
Here are a few papers I’m working on. I have some tweaking to do, with lining up, but this is the gist of them. The burgundy & cream stripe pattern – my favorite tv show is The West Wing and in the Oval Office on the show, there is a couch w/this pattern. And since I really like how it looks on the couch, I decided to make a paper from it. I then made a plaid from those stripes. The brush strokes example is from using my pink glitters as a base and then applying the brush strokes effect.
Colleen: In response to your #1 question I use textures for chrome and silver. Just open a texture in Paint shop Pro and I park it aside. Then go into your material palate and use the pattern, then you can play with the settings to make it bigger or smaller, twist and turn it etc. Then you can use the selection tool to pick the area you want the chrome etc and flood fill it with the texture.
The other suggestion is Super Blade Pro. It takes longer but it performs well in small areas for me like on jewelry trim.
I sure hope these suggestion helps you .
PS some samples for flooring etc.
Dorothy,
Thank you for the reply! And thanks for your suggestions, I’ll have to play around with it.
I did download a trial version of Super Blade Pro a couple weeks ago, but it is way too slow for me and just frustrates me. It doesn’t help that my computer is about 8 yrs old, so I definitely don’t want more slowing it down.
Thank you for posting your samples, those look great!
Colleen, sorry I had not seen your questions go through. Thanks for the reminder.
Question 1: I think the definition of “foil” can vary so you can possibly find tutorials to end up with different results. I can look into it. I know that Mura’s Meister plugin also has a “cloud” option (although you can create something using the Brush Variance palette and the Brush tools, plus lots of blur). As for the glass effect, I think that an overlay might be needed, but I’ll investigate.
Question 2: Although this is not free, I would recommend that you get Filter Forge when you have a chance. It often comes on sale for 80% off. Once you have the plugin, you can download thousands of individual filters. Get the Standard edition if you have a chance.
Question 3: Seamless tiling will depend on the design. With wood design, it is a bit harder. You can try with the native PSP Seamless tiling but it has some drawbacks. Usually, if I create a wood grain texture, I will create it as large as I need it to avoid seams.
Hope this helps.
Cassel,
Thanks for getting back with me & I’m sorry for my delayed response back to you.
– Regarding question 1, thanks, I will try playing around with different settings. What do you mean about maybe needing to use a glass overlay? I mean, I understand what an overlay is, but are you saying that I should look for a glass overlay to use?
– With question 2, I’ve been looking at Filter Forge, and will most likely get that. I downloaded a trial of Super Blade Pro, but it slows everything down too much & frustrates me. I hope Filter Forge is better.
– For question 3, what is native PSP Seamless tiling? I see a seamless tiling option under Effects – is that what you’re referring to? Also, were my eyes playing tricks on me, or did you have a tutorial on seamless tiling at one point?
Thanks!
Annie,
Thanks for letting me know about the wood grain being seamless for you. I just can’t unsee the vertical lines that are throughout mine, so I’ll have to play around with that more.
Great eye on the gold foil I posted! It was used with the glass filter in Photoshop Elements. I do see how it appears as glass, but I also think it looks like foil because of the shine. I prefer PaintShop Pro so much over Photoshop, but there are some filters in Photoshop that PSP doesn’t have. I’m lucky because my sister gave me her copy of Photoshop Elements, so I didn’t have to pay anything for it.
Oh and I did try the mosaic glass in PSP, but it doesn’t look right to me. I’ll have to play around more.
Your glitters look great!
Trish,
Thanks! Yeah, I’m leaning toward the left one on my sample also. There are soooo many different types of glitter. I’m about to just take a pic of real glitter and somehow use that…lol. Oh and I agree about sparkles – I think they add so much more to glitter.
I have not looked at Filter Forge, so thank you, I will check that out. I found SuperBladePro and downloaded a trial version. Having a hard time figuring that out at the moment, so more practice.
I love your St. Patrick’s Day papers!
** Looking for opinions ***
I’ve been driving myself crazy trying to make different kinds of glitter. I did Cassel’s glitter tutorial and I liked it, but it didn’t look as good as hers. Sooooo, I tried again, but this time, I used circles instead of squares. I’ll do the squares again, now that I think I might have gotten the basics down.
So, I’m wanting opinions from everyone, or anyone who will answer. 🙂 I have 2 different glitters in this pic, side by side. The one on the right side, I used my gold foil as the base color and then changed the hue/saturation, etc, to get it close to the pink on the left side. The one on the left side, I used pink, obviously, and then a couple layers I changed the shade of the pink (some darker, some lighter). For both I also added some white glitters, but the glitters on the right were using a soft brush and a gaussian blur – the left one I used a regular hard brush & only added a slight blur. I have sparkles/flares that I will be adding to these, but haven’t done so yet. I wish I could make them shinier, but I haven’t figured out how to do that yet.
Can you all tell me which one you like the best, the left or the right? (Please ignore the fact that the one on the right isn’t as vibrant as the one on the left – I just need to adjust it more) I’m leaning towards the one on the left as the one I like best, because of the different shades of pink I put on several layers. But I like the glowing on the right better than the left.
P.S. Please ignored the small spaces where there isn’t a glitter, just the color background. I’m not completely done with these yet – just wanted opinions first.
Thanks!
Trish,
No, I haven’t found a glass plug in yet, at least not one that doesn’t cost a fortune. I saw Cassel’s gold tutorial, but if there is a gold foil tutorial, I missed it.
Speaking of Cassel… Cassel would you mind taking a look at my previous post above and let me know your thoughts. Thanks!
Hi!
I’m attaching a couple screenshots of things I did that I have questions about.
The first, gold foil, was created in Photoshop, because I can’t find any kind of tutorial for PSP and that is what I’m wanting. The way this was done in Photoshop was with a filter of Clouds and then Glass and playing with the settings. I know in PSP, there is the KPT plugin that has the clouds and I did install that, so I was able to re-create the first part of this, but I can’t find any kind of glass filter in PSP, unless I’m just missing it. So, my questions about this are:
1. Is there a PSP tutorial somewhere on how to create foil, like this?
2. What filter programs should I buy or can get for free that has a glass filter? (I have Eye Candy on my old computer, which I was able to install into my PSP2020 32 bit on this computer, but when I tried to use it, I got an error message w/a pop-up to buy Eye Candy from Alien Skin. I may be able to use it if I open my PSP on my old computer, but haven’t tried it yet. I would love to have all the filters that Eye Candy has, but the price for that program is crazy expensive.
The next screenshot is just using the Woodgrain texture. As you can see, it doesn’t look seamless to me, so I’m needing help on that. So….
1. How do I make that seamless, so as not to look like it’s tiled? Cassel, I could have sworn there was a seamless tile tutorial on the page for Creative Scrap tutorials, but I can’t find it anymore. Can you point me to it? Because I’m thinking that is what I need to get rid of that tiled look, is that correct?
Thanks so much!
P.S. I did do a search on here for these things, but nothing came up.
Trish,
Your watermelon looks awesome! I hope someday to be able to do those things just from imagination. 🙂
Well, I had some things come up this past week and have only been able to do the 1st day of the challenge. But I am glad that I did it, because I now understand masks and I really like them.
This is me and my boyfriend Greg. The top pic is from 2017 at Disney World. We had just arrived from the airport. The bottom 2 pics are from 2012 & 2014. I wanted to use more recent pics, but I liked that all 3 of these were in black & white and thought it would look good. I think it turned out ok. The top pic was pretty small & I had to re-size it larger, which made it lose a little quality.
I’m not sure if I’ll be able to do the rest of the challenge right away, but I do have the tutorials now, so if I can’t do them now, I can practice later.
Cassel,
I’ll stay enrolled for the time being. I just watched a video on the Corel site about masks, so I now know what they are. 🙂 It went a little fast when talking about the layer groupings, so I’ll re-watch it.
Thank you for the instructions on what to download from dropbox – I do see the .psd file, so I feel better about that. I’ll admit the telecharger got me confused, because I didn’t see it on my dropbox. Until I realized that it was French and translates to download, which I did see on mine…haha.
I’ll take a fresh look at everything tomorrow, when I’m not so tired and will give it a go. It might take me a little longer, but I will try.
Thanks again! 🙂
Well, I think I may need to un-enroll from this challenge as I have no idea what masks are and I’m already lost just from reading the challenge page. Even with downloading the templates, I don’t know what things I’m supposed to download.
So, Cassel, how do I un-enroll from this challenge? I don’t think I’m experienced enough for this one yet.
Cassel,
I’m reading the PSP User Guide, but it’s very overwhelming and I really don’t know where/what sections to read to learn things I want to know right now.
You know about the glass I’m making, and I also mentioned a hat, but I’m wanting to make a candy cane, a mug, and other things that can be done w/shapes, brushes, or freehand drawing. But I’m also wanting to know how to manipulate those things, flood fill them, select certain sections, etc. Are there certain chapters of the User Guide I should focus on for these? Or will it be just going back & forth between, ie: shapes and then selections? Hope that makes sense.
Cassel,
Thank you so much!!!!! The settings were there! 🙂
I was very close in what I re-created, but I’m so glad to have the exact setting. I made sure to screenshot the settings and I saved it too, just in case.
And thank you for the tip on using an additional layer w/a blur. I will try that out.
Wow! So many cool shapes, papers, textures, etc, have been posted here, since I was here the other day. You all are so talented! I hope that I get as proficient as you all are.
So, I’m not the greatest at playing around w/settings to see what happens – I usually learn w/tutorials or with reading the user guide. However, I did try playing around with the effects options on something last week and I LOVE what happened. This ended up looking like a soft fuzzy texture. As you can see on the pic, I wrote down how I got it, but I stupidly forgot to write down or screenshot the number settings on the Colored Edges effect, so I’m having a hard time re-creating it exactly.
Sooooo, my question to Cassel or anyone who can answer is:
1. Is there a way to find out what the settings were? I’ve used those options since then, so seeing “last used” shows the number settings I just used, not what I had when I initially created this. (I’ve been able to re-create it as close as possible, but it’s not exact, so I thought I’d check to see if it’s possible)
2. I am wanting to use this texture on a winter hat I made, but I want the edges to look softer/fuzzier. I’m assuming the way to do that is by using the brush tool around the edges. Is that correct? If so, I seem to remember something from a tutorial (can’t remember which one) that talked about creating a path. Can you point me in the right direction?
Thanks!
Cassel,
Oh ok, thank you! I did see that tutorial, but wasn’t even thinking it would be similar. I will watch it again.
Cassel,
Thank you so much! I really like how the candies turned out, so I appreciate yours and Trish’s opinion on it too. 🙂 I totally missed that layer styles button, so thank you for pointing it out to me. And yes, the differences between the 2 programs are frustrating to me. I’ve only been using Photoshop when I can’t find the tutorial I want for Paint Shop Pro, but for now, I think it’s best that I just focus on Paint Shop.
I have a few more questions for you, if you don’t mind.
1. When creating elements, like the peppermint candy, what size canvas is best? I remember from your bootcamp videos that it’s better to have something bigger, that can be sized down, instead of sizing up and losing clarity. Those peppermint candies I made were 500×500, but I think that might be too small for a scrapbooking page of 3600×3600. Do you have a suggestion for a good base size for elements?
2. I feel silly asking this next question, but I want to know the answer. 🙂 So, when I start a new 3600×3600 page, the heading shows that it’s being viewed at 20%, as opposed to 100%. (I zoom in when I need to see better, but I personally like working at the 20% or so) What I’m wondering is when it comes to printing out those pages, if I created everything while it’s at 20%, when it’s printed out, will everything be bigger? Does that make sense?
3. Remember when I sent you an email asking about creating drinking glasses? I took your suggestion about looking at that public domain clip art page, but I am still wanting to learn how to make them on my own. This image shows where I tried creating a glass in 2 different ways. The bigger one was making 2 ellipses and then a line on each side to connect the top and bottom. For the space in between the 2 lines and the top & bottom of that glass, is there a way to select just that area to flood fill? (The bottom glass I drew just with lines and was able to flood fill that area, so that may be the way I go with creating the glass, but I’m still wanting to know about flood filling the other way.
Thank you, and I hope you don’t mind me asking here, instead of emailing you. Or is there a better place in the forums for just questions like this?
Trish,
Thank you for answering. Yep, the differences between PSP and Photoshop are frustrating to me, since I’m really just beginning to learn, but I thought I could try to figure it out…haha. I laugh because figuring it out is not something I’m really good at with these programs. 🙂 I’m reading the PSP user guide, but I want to keep working on things too.
Oh and yes, I did look through the tutorials that Cassel has, but didn’t find a peppermint candy one, so I googled and the only tutorials I could find were for Photoshop.
