EASY~PEASY VARIED OPACITY CALLING CARD

Paint Shop Pro Tutorials by Karen

When I made the tutorial for Filled Text, I was inundated by enquiries of how to make the varied opacity image I made as my sample of filled text in use! So here`s a similar image except I will be telling you how to do the varied opacity instead. For this tutorial we will be making it into a calling card, but you can easily use the same principle for other things like sigtags, greetings cards etc... simply do different sizes according to what you want to make! You will need a suitable photo or graphic for this tutorial. If you would like to use my photo simply right click and save it on your hard drive. This is my own original copyrighted photo and may only be used for the purpose of working on this tutorial. I have already made it the appropriate size for this tutorial.

Ready?... let`s begin... Open your photo / graphic and size it to about 270x165 pixels. Set your selections tool as in fig 1.

Use the selections tool to select a nice portion of your image as in fig 2.

Go edit / copy / edit / paste as new image then minimise it (click the minus ( - ) symbol at the top), now deselect (selections / select none). Go back to your selections tool and select a larger part of your image, leaving a margin all around, as in fig 3.

Go to layers / new adjustment layer / levels. Slide the "output levels" to between 125/255 and 200/255 on the slider bar ( as in fig 4 )then click ok.

Now go selections / select none, then layers / merge / merge all (flatten). Next go image / add borders and apply as in fig 5.

Set your styles pallette to foreground fill pattern and background null, as fig 6

Double click on the pattern on the styles pallette to open the pallette, and find the pattern you selected and minimised earlier, it`s usually at the top of the choices. Change the settings to your preference or to suit your image (as in fig 7) - OK.

Using your magic wand, click on the border to select it, then using the flood fill tool, click inside the selected border to fill with pattern.(fig 8)

Keep selected and go back to layers / new adjustment layer / levels, slide the "output levels" bar as before but use a slightly higher or lower level. OK. Go selections / select none. Now go layers / merge / merge all (flatten) and save your new card. Thats it!  now you can make different cards using the same image. Try adding bevels, borders,frames,decoration etc. The text is up to you but I like to use a filled text in the same pattern for a nice effect, simply change the background to the pattern and foreground to solid colour, black or a dark colour taken from your image with the dropper tool. Why not use a different shape for your main central selection!

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial which was written for PSP7 but should adapt for other versions. Close window to return to index. If you didn`t come here from the tutorials index and want to go there now CLICK HERE