Glamour Doll Sig Tag Tutorial

I claim the copyright to this tutorial.  You are free to do whatever you please with the tag you make, but please do not take my tutorial.  Do not send the tutorial through email.  Only share my link.

This tutorial was created for some friends of mine who wanted to begin learning more about PSP.  It is intended for beginners to learn how to work with tubes and basic flood filling.  If you have any questions, please feel free to email me.

This tutorial uses tubes that I have made.  The glamour doll tube is a tube that I made from a tutorial.  Please visit the tutorial if you want to make your own glamour doll in your own color.  Click on the link to download the zipped file of the tubes, then unzip into a folder onto your hard drive.  Download Tubes

To do this tutorial you will also need Paint Shop Pro.  I used Paint Shop Pro 7.0 .  You may download a free trial at Jasc.

Remember to save as a psp file often!

Before we begin, you might want to study the PSP tool bars.  I have labeled the tools on another page.  Click on the link and it will open a new page.  You may want to keep this page open while you work on the tutorial, to refer to the names now and then.  PSP Tools

Now that you have studied the tools, let's begin!

1.  In the top Menu Bar, click open file, and open the Pearl Tube file.  You will see a 
     3 x 3 arrangement of pearls.

2.  We will be using the tube tool to place these pearls in our sig tag, so let's store 
     the pearls in the tube tool.  This is call exporting.  In the top Menu bar, click File, 
     then Export, then Picture Tube (File--Export--Picture Tube).  A box will open. 
     Enter these settings:  cells across=3, cells down=3,  the total cells will 
     automatically fill with 9, and type into the Tube name box= Pearls.

You can close out the pearls tube now.

3.  Left-click on the foreground color box and type in #C00000 into the HTML code 
     box (near the bottom).  Click OK.

4.  Click New File in the top menu bar.  Enter these settings:  width=175, 
     Height=125, Resolution=72.000 pixels/inch, Backround color=transparent, 
     image type=16.7 Million Colors (24 Bits).  Click Ok.

5.  Click on the paint can (Flood fill tool) on the left menu bar.  Then left-click 
     inside  the New file window to turn the rectangle red.

6.  Left-Click in the background color box and type in #5657B3 in the HTML code 
     box.  Click ok.

7.  In top Menu bar, Click Image--Add Borders.  If a warning box comes up, click 
     yes.  Check Symmetric.  Type 3 in one of the boxes, and a 3 should appear in all 
     the size boxes.  Click ok.  This will add a 3-pixel blue border around the rectangle.

8.  Click on the switch arrow between the foreground and background color box.

9.  In the top Menu bar, click Image--Add border.   Check Symmetric.  Type 10 into 
     the size boxes.  Click ok.  This will add a 10-pixel red border around the rectangle.

10.  In the left menu bar, click the Text tool.  Then click on the red rectangle. 
     Change the Stroke box to null (circle with line through it) by clicking on the 
     black arrow in the stroke box and then the null sign.  Set the fill box to black 
     color by click on the red color and then typing in #000000 into the HTML code 
     box.  Choose which font you want to use, and an appropriate size.  I chose 
     Engagement Font, and Size=48. 

You can see that the second text is too big and will need to be deleted and resized. 
Also, you can see the blue fou-headed arrow that you need to be able to drag the text
where it is needed.

11.  Left-click on the rectangle again, and this time change the font size to 10. 
     Type:  "Tag by" and your name.  I typed:  Tag by RDB.  Check Floating.  click ok. 
     Move this text into place under the blue line and near the right corner.  This is 
     your tag mark.  You should always mark your graphics that you do not want 
     others to take and use.

12.  In top Menu Bar, click Layers--Promote to Layer.   PSP Tools

13.  In top Menu Bar, click File--Save As.  And save your file in a folder.  Make sure 
     the file type is set to .psp  so that you can edit it as is.  It is a good idea to 
     always save your creations along the way.  PSP uses alot of memory, and can 
     freeze your computer when you least need it to!

14.  In the top Menu Bar, click Image--Canvas Size.  Enter these settings:  New 
     width=350, New Height=300, check center image horizontally, check center 
     image vertically.  Click ok.

15.  In the top Menu Bar, click Open File.  Open the Glamour Doll tube.  Notice that 
     this window is now activated because it's topbar is colored and the other
     window is not.

16.  While the Glamour Doll tube is activated, in top Menu bar click Edit--Copy. 
     Then you can minimize this tube by clicking on the minimize button in the top 
     of the Glamour Doll window.

17.  Click on the other window (the red border) to make it active.

18.  While the Red border is active, in top menu bar click Edit--paste--as new layer. 
     This made a second layer on top of the red bordered layer.  You can see the 
     second layer is there by looking at the Layer Pallette.  You will also notice that 
     she is too big.  We will fix that in a couple of steps.

19.  In the top Menu Bar, click the Save icon (diskette) or click File--Save.

20.  Now we will resize the glamour doll.  In the top Menu Bar, click Image--Resize. 
      Check Percentage of original.  Type width=50,  Resize cell layers UNCHECKED, 
      and Check Maintain aspect ratio . . .   click ok.

21.  Now we move her.  Click on the mover tool in the left menu bar.  Then 
     Left-click  on her and hold to drag her to the right side of the calling card.

22.  Now we will add some shadow to give our picture some depth.  In the top 
     Menu bar, click Effects--3D Effects--Drop Shadow.  Apply these settings: 
     Vertical=2, Horizontal= -2 (negative 2), Opacity=100, blur = 5, color = black 
     (#000000)  Click on the color box and type in #000000 in the HTML code box. 
     Click ok.

23.  In top Menu Bar, click Layers--Add new Raster Layer.  Save file.  PSP Tools
 

24.  In the left menu bar, select the Tube Tool.   We will use the Pearl tube that you 
     exported earlier.  Click on the drop -down arrow in the Tool Options box and 
     scroll down to find the pearl tube, then click on it to make it appear in the 
     window.  Set the scale=20, and the Step=200.

25.  Pick a spot on your on your graphic where you want a pearl to appear, and 
     left-click there.  Then move over and left-click again to place a second pearl, and 
     keep placing pearls until you have placed what you want.  Note:  if you put a 
     pearl to close to another one, just click the undo icon in the top menu bar and 
     try again.  I strung some pearls on top and along the left side.  Then I put a few 
     loose pearls  below the rectangle.

26.  Now we will add some shadow to give our picture some depth.  In the top 
     Menu bar, click Effects--3D Effects--Drop Shadow.  Apply these settings: 
     Vertical=2, Horizontal= -2 (negative 2), Opacity=100, blur = 5, color = black 
     (#000000)  Click on the color box and type in #000000 in the HTML code box. 
     Click ok.

27.  Save the file.  It is always a good idea to save the file with layers, in case later 
     you want to go back again and make some changes.

28.  In the top menu bar, click Layers--Merge--merge visible.

29.  Choose selection tool from left menu bar.  Change the selection type to 
     rectangle.  Left-click and hold to drag a rectangle around the tag.  Make the 
     rectangle as close to the tag without touching it.  Make sure all of the tag is 
     inside the selected rectangle.  If you mess up, just right click on the pic and then 
     try again.  See picture below to see what it should look like.

30.  In top menu bar, click Image--Crop to selection.  The extra file space should 
     disappear.

31.  In the top Menu Bar, Click File--Export--Gif Optimizer.  In the box that appears, 
     there are 3 tabs.  The firs tab should say transparency tab.  Click in the color box 
     and make it black by typing #000000 in the HTML code box.  Then click on the 
     Partial Transparency Tab.  Then click in the color box there and make it black, 
     too.  Click ok.  It will take you to a save box, and save the file where you can find 
     it.  You can close out the file afterwards.  Click no.

And there you have it!  Your own Glamour Doll Sig Tag.

 

If you have any questions about this tutorial or comments, 

©  Dragonl's Breath (aka The Dragon Lord), 2003, December 27, 2002.  This tutorial and the Glamour Doll  graphics are 
      copyright to The Dragon Lord, 2003, 2002.  Please do not remove this tutorial from my site.  Share my url.