Thorn Among The Roses Animated PTU

If you enjoy the fragrance of a rose, you must accept the thorns which it bears.
Isaac Hayes

This tutorial was written by me on February 28th, 2013. 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 the quirky and stunning art of Jasmine Becket-Griffith which you can purchase at Creative Design Outlet HERE and the amazing kit to go with by Rebel Designs HERE.  Please support the arts and do not use Jasmine's tubes without a license and certainly do not share her tubes or this kit. Mask is mine and can be found right here on this blog, it's Trese Mask 0243.  (Refer to the list on the left of this page)  Plugins are Alien Skin Eye Candy 5/Impact, Eye Candy 4000, Toadies and Xero. Animation is Simone's which you can find on Scrappy Bit of Fun HERE...it's animation 26.  Font is called Agatha and can be downloaded HERE.

Let's get started...

Begin by starting a new 700 x 700 white image which we will resize later.  Copy and paste fra3 into your new image...resize 60% and move slightly to the left, duplicate, resize 75% and move to the right of the original frame...duplicate once more, resize 50% and move to the top of your work....add slight drop shadows to each and your work should appear something like this...

Now use your Selection tool with a feather of 25% and set on circle....select the large circle frame and then copy and paste paper 5 beneath the frame.  Go to Selections/Invert and hit delete to get rid of the paper outside the frame.  Now duplicate this paper frame and move it above the large frame beneath the middle circlular frame and resize it 75%, duplicate again and move it above the middle circular frame and resize it 50% and place it beneath the small circular frame.

Now draw another circle with your Selection tool over the largest paper layer within the largest circular frame and copy and paste your tube and place her so that her face fits into the frame...go to Selections/Invert and hit delete to delete any of the tube outside the frame.  Selections/Select None.  Duplicate and mirror your tube layer, resize it 75% and move the layer above the middle frame paper layer and position her into the frame.  Duplicate once more, resize 50% and move her above the smallest circular frame paper layer and position her into the smallest frame.

Now on all of these tube layers go to Effects/Plugins/Xero/Radiance and use these settings....settings which I used on most of the elements in my image as well.  I just love the softness it affords and how it tends to deepen the colors. 

Now, using my image as a reference, copy and paste your tube and the remaining elements into your working canvas.  Don't forget drop shadows and for the tube and the elements you want to have a bit more dimension, use a Perspective Shadow.  Go to Effects/Plugins/Alien Skin Eye Candy 5/Impact/Perspective Shadow and use these settings:

This plugin may require a little practice.  There are just a couple of important things to remember when shadowing is to attempt to make your shadows appear natural and to watch closely all the areas of whatever you're shadowing.  You can view all the areas by moving the little red box around at the top of the window of this plugin...

(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. You can move the whole shadow by holding down your right mouse button and clicking in the middle of the shadow.  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.)

Next, above your background layer copy and paste paper 5 and apply your mask.  Merge the group layers and then duplicate your mask and rotate the duplicate 45 degrees left or right, doesn't matter.  Then merge the two mask layers together and then grab your Selection Tool, set on circular with about a 70% feather.  Select the outer portions of the mask and then go to Selections/Invert and hit delete to soften the outer edges of the mask.

Now, in your layer palette, hide the background layer and the mask layer and Merge Visible, then copy this layer.  Go to Edit/Undo Merge Visible.  Unhide the mask layer and the background layer and above the mask layer paste the merged layers you just copied then go to Effects/Plugins/Toadies/Blast 'em and use these settings:

Now on this same layer go to Effects/Plugins/Toadies/Blur 'em and use these settings:

Now, let's merge a few layers together for ease in animating.  Merge down from the smallest circular frame to the background layer.  Hide these merged layers in your layer palette and then Merge Visible layers together.

Add your name and go to Effects/Plugins/Alien Skin Eye Candy 5/Impact/Bevel and use these settings:

Give it a slight drop shadow then go to Effects/Plugins/Eye Candy 4000/Corona and use these settings:

Now add your copyright, taking care that it is legal and legible. Your name should be the top layer and your copyright below it...merge the copyright down with the top merged layers.

Now let's animated and finish up.

Open Animation Shop (AS) by going to File/Jasc Software Products/Launch Animation Shop.  Back to PSP.  In your layer palette hide the top merged layers and your name then hold down CTRL + SHIFT and hit C to copy merged and go back to AS.  Hit CTRL + v to paste a new animation.  Open Simone's animation into psp and note the amount of frames the animation has.  Duplicate your newly pasted animation to have as many frames as Simone's.  I do this by right clicking on top of my ani and going down to Duplicate Selected.  Be sure you have all the frames selected in both your ani and Simone's ani and that the 'slider bar' on  both are all the way to the left putting you at frame 1 on both.  Resize Simone's ani to a width of 525 pixels to fit into our design here.  Now carefully drag the first frame of Simone's ani into the first frame of your ani.  The beginning of Simone's ani should begin at the bottom left corner of the face in the largest circle.  You may have to drag several times to get it right or you may get lucky.  If you're like me, most of the time I don't get lucky.  So I make me a few copies of the ani I'm dragging just in case.  If you don't get it right, simply Undo and redrag.

Now, go back to PSP.  Hide the bottom merged layers, unhide the top merged layers and your name.  Hold down CTRL + SHIFT and hit C to copy merged and then go back to AS and hit CTRL + v to paste new animation.  Duplicate as many times as needed to match the frames of your working animation which is 61.  Again, once duplicated be sure you have all the frames selected on your previous working ani and your newly working ani and that you are on frame 1 of both.  Carefully drag the new ani into the previously worked ani.  Check your work...View/Animation...if you're happy with it, resize and save as a .gif and you're done.

Thank you for trying my tutorial, I hope you had fun with it and maybe learned something to hone your PSP skills.  Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions for concerns for any of my tutorials.

Blessings,

Trese