Dragon to Butterfly
It was early September in Lincoln, Nebraska
Two friends were conversing at dusk on a porch
One was all wrapped up in blankets and pillows
The other an old overcoat
Affection was easy to witness between them
The physical closeness, the tender exchange
The one in the coat gently stroking the other
Who struggled but managed to talk just the same
He said "Do you remember the day we met, Michael
I heard you were coming and I called many times
I didn't want someone like you to move in here
I wasn't used to your kind
But instead of returning my ignorant curses
You just kept on answering the phone
And you knocked on my door with a bucket of chicken
The first time you came to my home."
The two men were laughing now, shaking their heads
With a sense of the passage about to take place
"Larry, if someone had said we'd be friends
I'd have called them insane to their face
But you can't always tell what's inside of an apple
And you can't always trust what you see."
And Michael continued to wonder out loud
After Larry had drifted to sleep
How a man can move mountains, a world can be turned
And the greatest of distances easily spanned
When the strength that's invested in making a fist
Is transformed into shaking a hand
Michael helped Larry back into the house
And then Michael's wife Julie helped Larry to bed
A life-long diabetic confined to a wheelchair
He couldn't do much for himself any more
So they'd taken him in to unravel the pain
How his father made fun of him, planting the seed
And the root of the anger that grew so completely
Once strangled his heart like a weed
But a man can move mountains, a world can be turned
And the greatest of distances easily spanned
When the strength that's invested in making a fist
Is transformed into shaking a hand
Larry's last breath in his bedroom at Michael's
Came later that night with his friend at his side
"Thank you" was all he could whisper "for changing
A dragon to a butterfly"
For Larry was once a White Knight, a Grand Dragon
With robes and with torches, with scorn and with hate
And Michael the Rabbi who'd just moved to Lincoln
With two open arms and with faith
That a man can move mountains, a world can be turned
And the greatest of distances easily spanned
When the strength that's invested in making a fist
Is transformed into shaking a hand
( David Roth )
This tutorial was written by me on August 8th, 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. It was written for PSP 9.
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 absolutely beautiful scrap kit by Lina's Designz which is packed with gorgeous elements and can you believe that it's free to use. You can download this kit from her blog HERE. Just scroll down the page until you find Little China Girl. Be sure to leave her some love for her wonderful gift. You will also need the amazing art Kof Anna Marine which you can purchase at Creative Design Outlet HERE along with the rest of her wonderful tubes. Please support the arts and DO NOT use Anna's tubes without a license. Mask is one of mine and you can grab it right HERE on this blog...Trese Mask 0046. Plugins are Alien Skin Eye Candy 5/Impact and Xero. Font is Karate, you can download it HERE.
Okay, let's get started...
First open all of your elements and your tube into PSP. Start a new 700 x 700 white image and copy and paste the frame element into it. Resize it 30% and give it a drop shadow. Go to Effects/3D Effects/Drop Shadow and use these settings:
Now copy and paste paper of choice beneath your frame. I used paper 3. Resize your paper 50% and then use your Raster Deform Tool or your Pick Tool, depending on which version you're using of PSP, and drag the corners of your paper to make it fit into the frame.
Next, above your paper copy and paste your tube, resize it 75% and move it slightly to the right of your frame. Duplicate it and drag the duplicated layer above your frame layer. Use your eraser tool to erase the lower part and some of the right side of your tube to fit into your frame...use my image as a reference if needed. Then go back to the original tube layer and again use your eraser tool to erase the areas of the tube outside the frame.
Copy and paste the Button element above your background layer and resize it 75% and move it to the left of your frame. Begin to copy and paste the rest of your elements into your working canvas. You can always, always, always use your Raster Deform tool or your Pick tool for precise sizing. This tool also prevents most of the distortion caused when resizing in percentages at times. It's one of my favorite and most used tool in PSP. You can use my image as a reference for size and placement. For the elements I want to have some depth I use a Perspective Shadow. I used it in this tag on the Pitcher and the Dragon. Go to Effects/Plugins/Alien Skin Eye Candy 5/Impact/Perspective Shadow and use these settings:
(You can tweak your shadows by moving the nodes around in the preview window. To move one node at a time hold down your CTRL key. It's very important to think about how a shadow would be cast realistically and how dark or how light it should be. This plugin is one of my favorites and one I use with nearly every single one of my tags.)
Be sure to add drop shadows to your other elements.
Next step is to add a new Raster layer above your background layer and flood fill it with a dark brown from one of the elements and apply your mask...Trese Mask0046.
At this point, hide your background layer and merge all the visible layers. On your merged layers go to Effects/Plugins/Xero/Radiance and use these settings:
Add your name and give it a drop shadow a little darker than what you've used on your elements. For crisp edges on your fonts set your antialias to sharp. Add your copyright and you're done. For a neat and professional-looking copyright I used copy or pixel fonts. You can google and literally find hundreds of these fonts. Most of them work best at size six with your antialias set to off. What I also done to make my copyright stand out on this tag isn't a gradient glow or corona. Do this...go to Selections/Select All/Selections/Float/Selections/Defloat. Back to Selections/Modify/Expand and expand by 1. Now to go your merged layers and hit delete and then deselect. Cool eh?
Thank you for trying my tutorial. I hope you gleaned something to hone your PSP skills. Please feel free to contact me with any questions about any of my fonts or with issues over broken links, etc.
Blessing,
Trese
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