Take My Life PTU

If ever you should need my life, come and take it

The Sea Gull

This tutorial was written by me on May 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 this wicked scrap by the amazing Crazy Carita called Bleeding Heart.  You can purchase this kit at Creative Design Outlet HERE along with the rest of her awesome kits.  Thanks Carita, had fun with this one.  You will also need the fabulous art of Anna Marine which you can purchase at Creative Design Outlet as well HERE.  Please support the arts and DO NOT use Anna's tubes without a license.  Mask by me Trese Mask0112 which you can download right here on this blog.  Plugins Eye Candy 4000, Xero and Alien Skin Eye Candy 5/Impact. A light brush which I have provided...you can download HERE.  Font is Chicago House which can be downloaded HERE.

Let's get started...

First put your mask into your PSP mask folder.  Next open all of your elements and tube into PSP.  You can use my image as a reference for the elements I used.

Next start a new 700 x 700 white image.  We will resize later.  Copy and paste your frame into your new image which from here I will refer to as your working image.  I used fr3.  Next copy and paste your paper beneath your frame layer.  I used paper pp9.  Resize 75% and erase all the areas of the paper outside your frame.

Next above your background layer copy and paste the same paper and resize 90%.  Apply your mask Trese Mask0112.  And now above this layer copy and paste element el77.  You can resize with your Raster Deform tool for precise sizing.  You will find this will prevent any distortion or pixelating of what you are resizing depending on how large or small you go.

Now above the el77 layer copy and paste element el29.  Duplicate this layer and move each of these elements to the left and right.  You can use my image as a reference for placement.  At the bottom of each of these use your selection tool with a 115% feather and hit delete a couple times.  This gives the appearance of a fog at the bottom of the gates.

Copy and paste the rest of the elements into your working image and again using my image as a reference for size and placement.  Scatter the roses and the vines to look natural and keep in mind that nothing in nature grows symmetrical.  To make them pop off the page we are going to use a Perspective Shadow for the vines and the skull crosses.  Go to Effects/Plugins/Alien Skin Eye Candy 5/Perspective Shadow and use these settings:

Do not change anything in the Settings Tab, for the purpose of this tutorial we are using the default shadow.  For the roses beneath the tube just give a slightly dark drop shadow by going to Effects/3D Effects/Drop Shadow.

Copy and paste your tube and use the same Perspective Shadow.  You can also resize the tube with your Raster Deform tool for precise sizing.

Use your brush to apply the candle glow on the flames of the candles.

We're going to resize at this point.  Hide your background layer and click on one of the other layers and merge visible layers.  Unhide your background layer.  You can now use your Raster Deform tool to resize the merged layers...just drag the corners down until you get the desired size and then crop around your work.  I like to leave plenty of negative space, I think it frames my tags well.

Next duplicate your merged layers.  On the bottom merged layer go to Effects/Plugins/Xero/Radiance and use these settings:

On the top merged layer go to Effects/Plugins/Xero/Mystifier and use these settings:

Then on this same layer using your Selection tool with the same feather and on the ellipse setting select around your tube and hit delete several times and then merge the two layers together.

Add your name and copyright and you're done.  Make sure your copyright is legal and legible.  For a professional looking copyright I use copy or pixel fonts, you can find them all over the net.  These fonts work best at size 6 and with your antialias set to off.  For the © symbol hold down ALT and hit 0169.

Thank you for doing my tutorial, I hope you enjoyed it and learned something useful.  Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions or with any issues with broken links.

Happy Creating

Blessings, 

Trese