This tutorial was written in June 2003 and  © by Lady Oz.  You may make a copy of this tutorial or print it out for your own personal use ONLY.  If you would like to LINK to my tutorials to share them with others please let me know.  What you create from my tutorials belong to you to do with as you wish....I hold no claim to them other than my tutorial rights.

Deckled Pencil Tutorial....in PSP 8.


This is what we are going to make...hopefully. *g*  The whole idea of this tutorial is to get you familiar with the tools of PSP 8 and to encourage you to play around with settings and features in this great new program....the finished image is just an added bonus. I'm hoping that you are going to astound me with your creativity and ideas. *s*

 


What you will need.

  • PSP 8      if you haven't already got it, you can purchase or download a trial version, just click on the link.

  • Gary Barton's Foto Fixer Script  which you need to put in your 'scripts restricted' folder.  *though this is optional*

  • An image of your choice.  I obtained my choice of photo... with permission... from Terry of the Tel's Interesting Trekking Scenes site.  Do yourself a favour and go see his awesome photos of the beautiful English Countryside...castles, ruins and landscapes.  Please respect his copyright.

* Note that most of the screen shots have been reduced to 70% to 90% for faster loading and because I have used so many of them; therefore the quality of the shots are not so good.

Please remember to SAVE often!

 

Step 1.  Open up the image that you wish to use...make a copy of it...Shift + D and close the original. 

This was my choice. (optimized by 30%)

Let's work on the copy.  If it shows as a background in the layer palette, then  promote to layer.  Do any tweaking that you may need to do now...colour correction, cropping, histogram levels and so on.   I cropped this photo to 563 x 337 then there are the borders to be added....if you are sending your results through the mail, then you may want to make your photo a bit smaller.

 

Step 2  

Duplicate layer 3 times so that you have 4 layers...rename these copies as below.

Turn off the top two layers by clicking on the glasses and work on the 'coloured pencil' layer.

Activate 'Effects'....Art Media Effects....Color Pencil....with these settings. click OK.

 

Now working on the 'black pencil' layer... Effects...Art Media Effects...Black Pencil...with these settings.

Lastly, highlight the 'trace contours' layer....Effects...Edge Effects...Trace Contour
 

        

Now change the blend for the top 3 layers only, to 'soft light'....then merge visible all layers.

 

Step 3

Duplicate this merged layer and working on the copy.....Effects...Art Media Effects...Brushstrokes....clicking on the arrow for the presets at the top of the window, scroll until you find 'Deckle Softly...click ok

Now change the layer blend to 'screen' and lower the opacity to about 64.... depending on your choice of photo.

Merge all layers, visible.

This is optional but I liked the effect that I got when I applied Gary Barton's Foto Fixer script.  Merge all flatten.

         

Step 4 

 'Image'....'Add borders' and apply a setting of 20, symmetric.... selecting a shade from the image with the 'dropper' tool...see above pic.

Grab the magic wand ...on the 'selections' fly out...and select this border...........Effects...Texture Effects...Texture...Plaid.  Click Ok.

Keeping selected....(there is no need to 'float' this selection) 'Effects'...3D Effects...Cutout........V 2  H2...Opacity 44... Blur 10.0.....repeat this cut out, but this time changing to a minus -2 for H and V.

Add another border of 20, this time picking a contrasting colour from your image.  Using the magic wand again select this new border....

 'Effects'....Texture Effects....Fine Leather.... with these settings

Effects'...3D Effects...Chisel...with these settings.

*Optional* Finish off by adding a coloured pencil....I used one that I made a while ago.    Now add your signature and your 'masterpiece' is now ready to be hung on your wall.

Finished!

Thanks for doing my tutorial and I hoped you enjoyed it. *s*

 

*A HUGE 'thank you' to Gary Barton for allowing me to link to his site....if you are interested in some awesome scripts, visit his site where you can also be added to his newsletter for regular updates...you won't be disappointed.  I will add that Gary is in the process of redesigning his site at present so he does not have all his work available as yet....but he does have the scripts etc.

Go to page 2 to see samples that were submitted by my testers.

Page 2

 

Have Fun! and  Email if you have any problems!

 

 

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Tutorial by Mary Newton aka Lady Oz aka Lady Newtonia © 2003