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.

Scratchy Paint 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      Which is what I did this tutorial in....if you haven't already got it, you can download a trial version.

  • Criss Cross texture  Unzip this and extract to your Presets folder.

  • 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.  The one that I used was the one of the Traditional Yorkshire Cobles (boats) on Staithes Beck and of course 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.

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.

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 'scratchy impasto' layer.

Activate 'Effects'....Art Media Effects....Brushstrokes....at the top of this window you will see the 'presets' window...using the arrow on the right hand side, scroll down until you see  'scratchy impasto' click OK.

 

To finish work on this layer, we then click on Adjust....Hue and Saturation.....Hue/Saturation/Lightness.  Lightness 0  Hue 5 and Sat....70....Then on to Adjust...Blur...Gaussian Blur 4.

 

Step 2  

Now working on the 'dry brush' layer... go back to the Brushstrokes window, as in the step above and find the 'Large Dry Brush' in the list of presets in the ....click ok.
 

        

 

Step 3 Threshold Layer.....

 

Working on the 'threshold' layer... Adjust....Brightness and Contrast...Threshold......apply a setting of about 154.  OK   *you may find that this setting depends on your choice of photo that you use...try moving the lever until you get an effect something like this one or one that suits YOU more.

Still on the 'threshold' layer....Activate...'Edge'...'Edge Effects'...'Trace contour'...then back to Edge Effects and choose 'Enhance edges' this time...then back again  to 'enhance edges more'.
 

 Change the layer blend to 'Soft light' on all layers except the bottom original layer.

     

Merge all layers, visible.

         

Step 4  This is where we add the texture to the image.  Click on 'Effects', 'Texture Effects'...'Texture'....'criss cross' with default settings.

Next go to 'Adjust'....Brightness and Contrast....then Automatic Contrast Enhancement...mine was set on 'darker...normal and natural'....but your photo may require something different....you know the rules...play around with the settings. *s*

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

Step 5  Final Step

     

Activate '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....there is no need to 'float' this selection.

Next, 'Effects'...3D Effects...Cutout........V 2  H2...Opacity 61... Blur 2.0.....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 darker contrasting colour from your image.   I added a Plaid texture to mine from the 'Effects'....Texture Effects....Texture, selection....and then the same cutout as for the first border.

*Optional*  Finish off by adding a paintbrush with a dab of paint on it....first find the spot that you want your paintbrush to lie and then using the 'dropper' tool, pick the colour where the paint brush head touches....to make it look like that is where you last painted. *s*   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*

Go to the next page to see another sample from this tutorial and also those submitted by my testers, Auntie Em and Vera.

Page 2

*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.

 

 

 

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