Embrace

We are each of us angels with only one wing,
and we can only fly by embracing one another.
- Lucretius

This tutorial was written by me on April 7th, 2012. Any resemblance to any other tutorial or tag is unintentional and is pure coincidence. Please do not claim my work as your own and do not post to any other website, blog or forum without permission from me. It is written with the assumption that you have a working knowledge of PSP and its components. I wrote it for PSP 9, but it should be compatible with most versions.

I recommend that you read through this or any tutorial you are attempting before starting it so you will know what to expect and how to get organized.

As with any of my tutorials when a plugin is required, change only the settings I recommend and leave the others on the default settings.

What you will need to accomplish this tutorial is the beautiful art of Rachel Anderson which you can purchase at Creative Design Outlet HERE. Please support the arts and do not use her art without a license. You can purchase the scrap kit artist bundle as well at CDO HERE. Scrap kit by the incomparable Ladyhawwk Designs. Thanks Cat for your talents. You will need plugins Penta/Dot and Cross, Alienskin 5/Impact and Eye Candy 4000. Font is Herr Von Muellerhoff and can be downloaded HERE.

Let's get started....

Open your tube and elements into PSP. You can use my image as a reference for the elements I used. Start a new 700 x 700 white image. You can resize later. Copy and paste the ribbon, which is element 34, into your working image. Go to Adjust/Hue & Saturation/Colorize and use these settings: Hue 179 and Saturation 159. Place the ribbon to the right of your working image. Go to your palette and duplicate this element then mirror and flip it. Move these elements close to one another so the very edges are touching...in other words, make a frame. Add a drop shadow using these settings: Offset vertical and Horizontal 4, Opacity 54 and Blur 14...color is black.

Beneath the frame we just created copy and paste the purple paper 4. Erase the edges outside your frame. We will come back to this layer later on. On top of this paper layer, copy and paste your tube. You can use your Raster-Deform tool to resize your tube if needed. Duplicate your tube and drag the duplicate layer above your ribbon frame layer. Erase the bottom of your tube until you see all the parts off the ribbon frame. Go back to your original tube layer and add a perspective shadow. Go to Effects/Plugins/Alienskin Eye Candy 5/Perspective Shadow. In your settings tab there are a lot of different settings. These are fun to play with and this is one of my favorite plugins. For our purposes here use the Factory Default and in your Basic tab use these settings: Check Perspective Shadow, Center offset distance 11.70, Overall Opacity 27, Overall Blur 4.70, Perspective Blur 11.43, Fade out 17, and check the Mask Selection..color is black. This is a plugin that takes some practice, but makes a huge difference in giving your image and 3 dimensional effect. Just be sure when you use it that you pay particular attention to all areas of the tube or element you are shadowing. You can view all areas of what you're shadowing by moving the red box around which is on the top of your plugin window. Once you apply this plugin, watch how she pops off the page...cool hunh?

Now beneath your paper layer copy and paste the flower elements. Duplicate and arrange them as I have done. Give them the same drop shadow as above on your ribbon frame. Copy and paste the rest of your elements and arrange them using my image as a reference. Resize with your raster deform tool. I have found it cuts down on the distortion that happens by resizing in percentages. Be sure to add your drop shadows. For my stationary and ink well and quill elements I used the same perspective shadow as I did for my tube.

Next, go to the very bottom of your layer palette and add a layer. Go to your selection tool, set your selection type to Hexagon with a 94% feather. You can right click on the center of your selection and drag it to center it with your work. Flood fill this selection with a color in your work, I used the light lavender on the ribbon. You can flood fill a few times. Deselect and use your raster deform tool to resize if needed to fit nicely beneath your work. Now go to Effects/Plugins/Eye Candy 4000/Corona and use these settings: Glow Width 7, Flare size 14, Stretch 42, Waver 86, Blur 36, Overall Opacity 70, color will be a darker color in your work, I used the purple, check draw only outside selection.

On this same layer go to Effects/Plugins/Penta/Dot and Cross and use these settings: amount 145, cross distance 10 and cross width 2. Now back to our purple paper layer...in your layer palette duplicate this layer and then apply the same Penta settings as we just did. Now go to your selection tool and set the type to Elipse with the same 94% feather and draw a long thin elipse around your tube then hit delete once.

Add your wordart, your copyright and your name and we're done. Be sure your copyright is legible and correct.

I hope you enjoyed my tutorial and hopefully learned something from it to hone your PSP skills. Please feel free to contact me with any questions or issues with broken links.

Blessings, Trese