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Last Updated:
Jan 20th, 2007 - 12:55:03 |
I am taking a different approach to making threaded ribbons and edges for PSP users. Why…because I can!
I happen to love these types of frilly, knitted, knotted looped edged ribbons.
In this tutorial you are going to learn your brush variances and how to manipulate them! Learn to get along with this wonderful ability that PSP has. I am attaching both brushes I made and used for this tutorial for you to use. I found that brushes which do not make a perfect circle once you rotate it work the best. You will have to download and import them to your brush folder for PSP.
Download HERE
Just remember to reset your brush variance (with the little black arrow in the lower right corner of the palette) when you want your brushes to act normal again.
Open a new at 300ppi resolution with a white background. I use a canvas size of 6x6, which is half of a normal 12x12 image. I usually just take a section of the brush image and duplicate it to create a large enough piece to work with so for now we do not need that huge canvas.
Or you can just make your brush stoke all the way across the full size page, that gives you time to go get a cup of coffee and start the laundry!!
I work in shades of gray (the darkest gray and the lightest gray on the Materials palette. For me it is the easiest way to pick out the detail I want to use.
I can colorize these ribbons any color I want later but you are more then welcome to use a pattern or other colors besides.
Create a New Raster Layer so you can keep your brush strokes separate from the white background, I make a new layer for everything I do!! (hint, hint) I only merge layers when I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I will not need anything as a separate image!! Sometimes even then, I am wrong
Select your brush tool and find the tr_ripple brush.
Settings:
Main Brush Tool Bar: Size-500, Step-1, Density-100, Rotation-0, Opacity-100, and Blend Mode-Normal
Open your brush variance palette if you do not already have it available on your screen. View>Palettes>Brush Variances, I click the little pushpin to make this palette roll up when I do not need it. (Auto hide Palette)
Brush Variance Palette:
Setting:
Color Blend-Repeating Fade In-26
Rotation-Repeating Fade In-0
Fade Rate-12
Impressions Per Step-10
The next thing to remember is to create these brush strokes in a straight line, I turn on View>Rulers, and then I go down about 2 inches so my brush stroke will all be on the image and won’t run off of the top. I line up my brush tool so I can see how it falls on a inch mark on my ruler, click your brush once, release it and then hold the SHIFT key. Move your brush cursor about 3 inches to the right on your image and line up your brush mark again on ruler. Click once again your brush tip and then release your shift key. The rendering of this brush stroke will take a little while, as there are a lot of impressions per step.
Then you will have this when it is done, look at that neat pattern at the bottom!! Now I take my selection tool set to rectangle and select a part of the brush image that I want to use. Making sure you have a complete pattern but not taking any of the messed up extra stuff on the ends, copy / paste as new layer, or if you want take this and paste it as a New Layer on a new 3600x3600 canvas.
Ok I like the bottom part, but not “all” of the bottom part so using my background eraser and carefully choosing one area where I am going to click, trying to remove that lighter gray color. I like to use the Size setting large on the eraser to cover a larger enough area so I do not have to make too many strokes in case I grab the wrong color by accident. I selected the area where the arrow is pointing as the center on my background eraser.
Settings:
Size-365, Hardness-82, Step-1, Density, Thickness, Opacity set to 100, Sharpness 45, Sampling-Continous, Limits-Discontigous and check Auto Tolerance. Now on my sample I only have to click twice with the background eraser.
Now copy and paste this image as many times as you need to fill your page, then you will have this.
Here is what I got when I duplicated that layer and flipped it.
This is the two flipped layers, spread further apart with a rectangle pattern fill behind them on another layer and my edges colorized.
Here is another one that I placed the two layers close together and colorized it.
Keep in mind this is all done with that one original brush image! The next image I actually took many different areas of that brush image and applied them in many different ways to this image, 5-6 different edges alone for ribbon trim and edges.
This one I applied the Greg's Factory Output Filters Vol. 2, Pool Shadow Effect Filter available from: pspug.org this free download is a great filter for ribbon shadows.
Here is just a quick run down on my second ribbon-edge I used the same Main Brush Settings as above.
Setting:
Color Blend-Repeating Fade In-26
Rotation-Repeating Fade In-0
Fade Rate-118
Impressions Per Step-1
Again select your area, copy / paste as new layer fix it up however you want, on this one I did not have to use the background eraser since my brush tip is just a thin swirl design. I also used Eye Candy 4000/Glass plug-in with my own preset for a small thin shine and gave my ribbon a darker, richer color. Then I added my rectangle ribbon and filled with color, adjusted the Blend Mode until I liked it. Added Effects/Texture Effects/Blinds Width 14, Opacity 26, Color Black. Then I added Effects/Texture Effects/Texture and I had one called Marsh and applied that. The last step was to add Effects/Distortion Effects/Wave as we can’t always have straight ribbons! I used the settings below, but play with your sliders and see what happens!
When you find a setting that you really like, whether it is a brush variance setting, texture or a wave setting remember to SAVE these as your own presets. You can find how to do this in the PSP Help menu and search for Presets!
Creativity, time, playing, trial and error are the mother of all great designs. You can apply these edges to any type of ribbon, using any type of Pattern or Texture. I do believe I’ve created something very interesting and I sincerely hope you enjoyed learning how to do this. Read more about Brush Variances why and how they work!
© Copyright 2003-2005 by Scrapbook-Bytes; & original creator/s of tutorials/articles
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