Vector Workshop 2024

[Jeni Simpson]

10 minutes ago, Susan Ewart said:

Lesson 5  #2

A fun exercise to do.  I spend more time trying to learn how to work with layer masks (not sure that's the correct terminology), photographed on grey so I could add a textured back ground with blend modes (easy part), then needed to mask the blended texture layer to let the flower show through (hard part to wrap my mind around - which layer is the mask, is it black or white etc).  the hardest part was wrapping my head around what on the top layer needed to be blocked, it kept thinking it was everything but the flower, but it turned out it was the flower I needed to block.  Hopefully I will remember for next time.

I added the little round label thinking you couldnt see it, but it seems to show up well and I have no idea why the top text on the flower is blurry, the original is not and even looking at the 600 version on my own computer it is not blurry.  PSP is acting really slow today.  Yesterday fast, today the opposite.  And with the all temp files and cache cleared.   

 

 

Your images are quite beautiful, Susan, inspirational.

[Cassel]

@Mary SolaasGreat watermelon. A bit more elaborate than a single leaf silhouette, right?

@Anja Pelzer You didn't seem to have any problem with lesson 5. Good work.

@Jeni Simpson Whenever you need help, I am here! OK I think you are officially addicted to the VectorTube script now! LOL For the last one, sometimes, the Line Style changes to this while you THINK it is solid. Just open the Vector properties by double-clicking on the Object, and change the Line Style to solid.

@Ann Seeber I am not sure why the anti-alias would toggle from checked to unchecked either. At least, if you see some jaggied edges, that is the first thing to check.

@Randy To make a symmetrical shape with points, you can use the Symmetrical shape tool. That would be even faster than a script, and allows you to choose however many "points" you want, and tweak them all at once if you want. Select the Draw Stellated and play with the settings. We even had one class using it HERE. For Inner and Outer glow, you can use Layer Styles, as mentioned by Mary. As for OneDrive, a few people have reported issues with that. I don't have it myself so I cannot investigate.

@Minka Glasier Tubes along a path can be so much fun!

@Daniel Hess One thing that came to mind is whether you tried to paste using Ctrl-V. I found out that it does NOT work and you have to do it the long way, with right-clicking > Edit > Paste. I don't know why but could that be what you were doing to paste the cut shape? I don't see any reason not to have multiple shape on a single image. I have done that myself. Good work on the text on path. That didn't cause issues, right?

@Jen Brown That was a lot of nodes for that leaf. Good work.

@Bonnie Borntrager Those outlines look great. I think you might get addicted!

@Susan Ewart Yes, you just activate the object and Recover anti-alias. I have imported some EPS files as WMH files that PSP can read, and I had noticed those jaggied paths. I even had to write a script to go through all the objects as sometimes, I would have over 100 tiny shapes to "recover". It looks like you did a good job on the rocket. I'll wait for the specific questions. (maybe it could go to the Q&A if necessary). Once you are in the Edit mode, try clicking anywhere outside the box, while the Object is active. It should get rid of the box. As for your version, you got the correct one (I always check, just in case). 

@Gerry Landreth The tool you are looking for is the Symmetric shape, and the Stellated mode. The class I showed it in is Vectors in Action.

@Emerald Jay It looks like you did that effortlessly!

@Corrie Kinkel That was easy (especially since you are already very familiar with the script).

@Anja Pelzer You are definitely having fun. I recognize those picture tubes!

@Donna Sillia It looks like you had no problem with that text on path, even counterclockwise!

@middieThe small "dot" you see is just the last picture tube applied. Unfortunately, there is always a sort of "overlap" to close the path with the picture tube. It will be more or less noticeable depending on the picture tube you choose.

If you thought that today's lesson was fun, you will get a nice surprise tomorrow! Stay tuned!

[Mary Solaas]

Lesson 4 - finally! Requirement was to do the cutout.  I chose to do the life preserver from the summer group.  Had quite a time getting it the way I wanted it to be in the preset shapes, but I finally accomplished it. I then used it and this is the result. I duplicated it and then hid it and rasterized the duplicate. I used inner glow on the layer styles, inner bevelled it (regular way - effects), then added the dark blue wrapping. Everything worked out fine this time.

Edited June 23 by Mary Solaas

[Bonnie Borntrager]

1 hour ago, Cassel said:

@Mary SolaasGreat watermelon. A bit more elaborate than a single leaf silhouette, right?

@Anja Pelzer You didn't seem to have any problem with lesson 5. Good work.

@Jeni Simpson Whenever you need help, I am here! OK I think you are officially addicted to the VectorTube script now! LOL For the last one, sometimes, the Line Style changes to this while you THINK it is solid. Just open the Vector properties by double-clicking on the Object, and change the Line Style to solid.

@Ann Seeber I am not sure why the anti-alias would toggle from checked to unchecked either. At least, if you see some jaggied edges, that is the first thing to check.

@Randy To make a symmetrical shape with points, you can use the Symmetrical shape tool. That would be even faster than a script, and allows you to choose however many "points" you want, and tweak them all at once if you want. Select the Draw Stellated and play with the settings. We even had one class using it HERE. For Inner and Outer glow, you can use Layer Styles, as mentioned by Mary. As for OneDrive, a few people have reported issues with that. I don't have it myself so I cannot investigate.

@Minka Glasier Tubes along a path can be so much fun!

@Daniel Hess One thing that came to mind is whether you tried to paste using Ctrl-V. I found out that it does NOT work and you have to do it the long way, with right-clicking > Edit > Paste. I don't know why but could that be what you were doing to paste the cut shape? I don't see any reason not to have multiple shape on a single image. I have done that myself. Good work on the text on path. That didn't cause issues, right?

@Jen Brown That was a lot of nodes for that leaf. Good work.

@Bonnie Borntrager Those outlines look great. I think you might get addicted!

@Susan Ewart Yes, you just activate the object and Recover anti-alias. I have imported some EPS files as WMH files that PSP can read, and I had noticed those jaggied paths. I even had to write a script to go through all the objects as sometimes, I would have over 100 tiny shapes to "recover". It looks like you did a good job on the rocket. I'll wait for the specific questions. (maybe it could go to the Q&A if necessary). Once you are in the Edit mode, try clicking anywhere outside the box, while the Object is active. It should get rid of the box. As for your version, you got the correct one (I always check, just in case). 

@Gerry Landreth The tool you are looking for is the Symmetric shape, and the Stellated mode. The class I showed it in is Vectors in Action.

@Emerald Jay It looks like you did that effortlessly!

@Corrie Kinkel That was easy (especially since you are already very familiar with the script).

@Anja Pelzer You are definitely having fun. I recognize those picture tubes!

@Donna Sillia It looks like you had no problem with that text on path, even counterclockwise!

@middieThe small "dot" you see is just the last picture tube applied. Unfortunately, there is always a sort of "overlap" to close the path with the picture tube. It will be more or less noticeable depending on the picture tube you choose.

If you thought that today's lesson was fun, you will get a nice surprise tomorrow! Stay tuned!

O I’m already there lol. If hubby and dog leave me alone and computer stops crashing I’m all good. 

[Susan Ewart]

2 hours ago, Jeni Simpson said:

Your images are quite beautiful, Susan, inspirational.

Thank you so much Jeni.  That means the world to me.  

[Susan Ewart]

2 hours ago, Cassel said:

Yes, you just activate the object and Recover anti-alias. I have imported some EPS files as WMH files that PSP can read, and I had noticed those jaggied paths. I even had to write a script to go through all the objects as sometimes, I would have over 100 tiny shapes to "recover". It looks like you did a good job on the rocket. I'll wait for the specific questions. (maybe it could go to the Q&A if necessary). Once you are in the Edit mode, try clicking anywhere outside the box, while the Object is active. It should get rid of the box. As for your version, you got the correct one (I always check, just in case).

Thank you Carole.  I will try that.  I know that it's something I'm not doing right and that it's a simple fix like you've offered.  Often my issue is "where" I am clicking as opposed to where I "should be" clicking.  Clicking the mouse in the right spot is important I am learning.

[Susan Ewart]

3 hours ago, Jeni Simpson said:

I agree, Middie, I played with many different options with the size of tube to shapes to add the tube to. The font you have used for your creations is fabulous, and works so well in this instance.
I have always loved doing Richie Dumlao's tutorials using the ampersand. It is such a beautiful shape. I also loved the x shape, Gill Sans Ultra Bold. I tried several different fonts and shapes, there is so much to enjoy with this day 6 vector tutorial.

When I just watched the Lesson 6 tutorial with the Vector Tube script I thought of Gill Sans Ultra Bold immediately.  It's one of my favorite fonts.  I am thinking of the small 'i' and wonder if the script will find the dot since it's not attached.  I'll find out tomorrow when I do the lesson.  Everyone has done really awesome stuff in Lesson 6, I'm excited to get to it.  

[Ann Seeber]

5 hours ago, Susan Ewart said:

I have no idea why the top text on the flower is blurry

Suz, from here it looks like the background color varies and that exact spot is close to the color of the text. Possibly??

[Randy]

8 hours ago, Gerry Landreth said:

Randy - Open File Explorer and right-click on OneDrive. In the pop-up menu, locate OneDrive. From there, you should be able to choose how you want the folders to be stored: locally on your computer, solely on OneDrive in the cloud, or both. 

Thank you. I was not expecting any help on this but am very grateful for your suggestion.

[Daniel Hess]

@Cassel and everyone else as well.  Going back to the 16 cups file, I have found that OFTEN, after doing the cutout, then pasting it into the vector, the cutout doesn't happen i.e. I do NOT get the transparent section in the cup handle.  Then I start using the undo step by step until the NEXT undo is the Reverse Path command.  If at that point I go into the cutout section and select Reverse Path AGAIN, then select all, cut, then paste into the vector, IT WORKS.  I don't know what I've been doing that "already" reverses the path before I try to do it on the first attempt but somehow, when my initial reverse path is invoked, the path was already reversed (apparently...if doing it a second time makes it work).  Anyhow...I'm now up to "Multicup07" preset shape in the cups file.  I have also a couple of times tried to get fancy and paste a second cutout into one of the vectors but that hasn't been working.  When I'm done with the 16 cups, I'll go back and tackle that and figure out how to make it work.

[Daniel Hess]

15 hours ago, Mary Solaas said:

@Cassel HELP!!!!  I exported my life preserver  preset shapes, but it does not appear in preset shapes HOWEVER it is listed in the presset shapes folder.  What is wrong???? This happened once before long ago (LIKE MAYBE LAST YEAR IN THE VECTOR WORKSHOP).

If you tried to edit it after already "exporting it", then exported it again, you may have to shut down your PSP and restart it because the "new" exported version wasn't re-uploaded into the preset shapes...if that makes sense.  I had that happen to myself...made a change and it didn't show up when I tested it as a preset shape.  Then I "reloaded" the preset shapes, the changed version was in there.  OR (and I didn't try this), maybe selecting and using one of the other tools then selecting preset shapes again will reload the shapes without having to shut down completely.

[Donna Pearson]

I've finally finished the 6 Vector lessons.  Thanks Cassel for the quick response to the Need Help post yesterday.  It really helped.  It is version 22.2.0.8 PSP Pro 2020 Ultimate I'm using.  I'm so excited about what I can do with that learning!  I just need to find the time now!  And I'm now really looking forward to the next lesson! 

[Trevor Andrew]

Lesson 5 gave me a lot of trouble suffering from Murphy’s law “If anything simply cannot go wrong, it will anyway”.

Finally I realised I had not selected the correct layer, duplicating the path doubled the number of layers, reverse path on a text layer seriously messes things up.

Carole mentioned duplicating the vector / layer before adding text, for me that worked as I could “reverse path” on one vector, named as lower text, now typing in correct order.

Then tweak the offset making sure the correct layer is selected.

A little more practice and still suffering with reverse paths, sometimes seems we have to be specific in the order we do things

Still need practice to perfect the workflow.

[Bonnie Borntrager]

This workshop was alot of fun but some of it was hair pulling. 😆 Thank You

[Anne Lamp]

I am way behind in this challenge for various reasons.  One thing I can't figure out is how to increase the size of the size of the NODES so I can wee them better. I know Cassel said how to do it, but I can't figure out how to access the place to do that.  It is probably one of those DUH things, but I just can't get my head around it. Without doing this I get frustrated every tome I try to do anything. My eyes aren't as good as they used to be and my screen is not very large.

 

[middie]

14 hours ago, Jeni Simpson said:

I agree, Middie, I played with many different options with the size of tube to shapes to add the tube to. The font you have used for your creations is fabulous, and works so well in this instance.
I have always loved doing Richie Dumlao's tutorials using the ampersand. It is such a beautiful shape. I also loved the x shape, Gill Sans Ultra Bold. I tried several different fonts and shapes, there is so much to enjoy with this day 6 vector tutorial.

Enjoyment yes, but lots of tedium in finding letters and tubes & tube settings that gel together perfectly. I probably need basic lessons in using picture tubes. The more you learn the more you need to learn... it never ends.....

[middie]

Lesson 7 assignment enclosed. Stil having trouble matching font & tube styles & sizes. This looks like I used one tube around one complete path but I did cut the path in half so I could work on the top and bottom of the letter separately (that actually was the easiest part).  After numerous combinations, I decided to use one button tube for the top and another button tube for the bottom. When I was cutting & moving nodes, I didn't get the images to line up properly & had to use the pick tool to do so before merging the layers at the end. Some mistakes are easiert to hide than others........

[Donna Pearson]

19 minutes ago, Anne Lamp said:

I am way behind in this challenge for various reasons.  One thing I can't figure out is how to increase the size of the size of the NODES so I can wee them better. I know Cassel said how to do it, but I can't figure out how to access the place to do that.  It is probably one of those DUH things, but I just can't get my head around it. Without doing this I get frustrated every tome I try to do anything. My eyes aren't as good as they used to be and my screen is not very large.

 

Hi Anne.  I had difficultly with that too.  Go to User Interface at the top of the screen above the tool bar.  Click on that and you will get various options you can alter, including font size, text size, and node sizes.  Mine is now set to large.  Shame there's no Extra Large!!  Hahaha

[Trevor Andrew]

39 minutes ago, Anne Lamp said:

I am way behind in this challenge for various reasons.  One thing I can't figure out is how to increase the size of the size of the NODES so I can wee them better. I know Cassel said how to do it, but I can't figure out how to access the place to do that.  It is probably one of those DUH things, but I just can't get my head around it. Without doing this I get frustrated every tome I try to do anything. My eyes aren't as good as they used to be and my screen is not very large.

 

 

[Randy]

I wanted to do text on a path in PSP but kept missing something 🙂

Anyway, I am quite enjoying that part and that is my focus of the vector workshop.

I used text to path for the introduction to a video for the service from our church today.

I like learning things.

I like it much better when I can use what I learn.

Thank you again, Carole. 

I so appreciate this.

 

[Susan Ewart]

Lesson 6 part 1

What a fun script this is.  I learned I NEED way more picture tubes.  

 

[Susan Ewart]

Oops I forgot to ask.  I made a picture tube for a Lab.  it's a yellow flower.  However when I tried to use it today it comes out as B&W, even though the dropdown shows it as yellow still.  Is there a setting I messed up?

[Cassel]

6 minutes ago, Susan Ewart said:

Oops I forgot to ask.  I made a picture tube for a Lab.  it's a yellow flower.  However when I tried to use it today it comes out as B&W, even though the dropdown shows it as yellow still.  Is there a setting I messed up?

First, change the Selection Mode from Pressure to something else. It does not explain the greyscale image though. How is it when you use it manually and not in a script? Still greyscale? That is very odd. You might want to open the actual picture tube file for that flower and see if the image is still in colors or not. If it is in colors, re-export it to see if it solves the problem.

[Mary Solaas]

I had an interesting thing happen - haven't noticed it happening before. I opened a blank canvas and set my picture tube to rope. I then selected the tool "text" and typed the word. It shows in the layers pallet correctly until you look at the layer inside that is supposed to show the work typed - it's blank. I closed and reopened the software. and tried again - same thing. So the Vector tube script won't work because there is nothing in the text layer - this morning - HOWEVER I FOUND THAT IF I THEN SELECT THE PEN TOOL AND RIGHT CLICK ON THE BLANK LAYER THAT HAS NOTHING IN IT (BECAUSE THE PEN TOOL HAS "CONVERT TO PATH" CHECKED), THE WORD TYPED THEN APPEARS IN THE CORRECT LAYER AND THE VECTOR TUBE SCRIPT WORKS FINE.  THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED TO ME BEFORE.  IS THERE SOMETHING I MIGHT HAVE DONE WRONG IN SELECTING THE TEXT TOOL????  OR ARE THE GREMLINS VISITING ME AND LAUGHING THEIR HEADS OFF!

[Cassel]

9 minutes ago, Mary Solaas said:

I had an interesting thing happen - haven't noticed it happening before. I opened a blank canvas and set my picture tube to rope. I then selected the tool "text" and typed the word. It shows in the layers pallet correctly until you look at the layer inside that is supposed to show the work typed - it's blank. I closed and reopened the software. and tried again - same thing. So the Vector tube script won't work because there is nothing in the text layer - this morning - HOWEVER I FOUND THAT IF I THEN SELECT THE PEN TOOL AND RIGHT CLICK ON THE BLANK LAYER THAT HAS NOTHING IN IT (BECAUSE THE PEN TOOL HAS "CONVERT TO PATH" CHECKED), THE WORD TYPED THEN APPEARS IN THE CORRECT LAYER AND THE VECTOR TUBE SCRIPT WORKS FINE.  THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED TO ME BEFORE.  IS THERE SOMETHING I MIGHT HAVE DONE WRONG IN SELECTING THE TEXT TOOL????  OR ARE THE GREMLINS VISITING ME AND LAUGHING THEIR HEADS OFF!

When you say there was nothing, do you mean in the thumbnail or the text on the right of the thumbnail?

Or could the Stroke be set to 0? In that case, it does not show, even though it is there.