AMERICAS MAP

Created April 15, 2002 © Copyright Moon's Designs
Property of Moon's Designs
This is Jax creation, any similarity to other tutorials on the Internet is unintentional.
Please do not copy or place this tutorial or any graphics to any other place without written permission directly from me. Thank you.

 

I am proud and honored to present this tutorial to you on Moon's Designs. One of my "students", as she prefers to call herself LOL, created a graphic yesterday that is wonderful. I told her she needed to write a tutorial on it *grin*, but like most of us who haven't written one before, she said "I don't think so", but proceeded to send me the directions for me to write. Her directions are so very clear and very few changes needed to be made that I in no way will take credit for this tutorial, other than to put it up on Moon's Designs.

This talented artist is Jax and she has come a long way, baby! *grin* Jax has her own site called Niche Curiosities and you can view it HERE. I had already told her I would do this tutorial for her. After seeing her explicit directions I do believe that she can start writing her own tutorials and putting them up on her own site. *smiles*

This tutorial will introduce you to a different way of coloring using the Manual Color Correction tool in PSP. Jax says, "this form of colourizing is overlooked and you can get much nicer tones using the Manual colour correction. You can pick up matching hue tones from your graphic by using the eye dropper. Then press the Add user colour button and save, this will save your own favorite colours!!"

My tutorials are only guidelines to help you accomplish a certain creation. Please feel free to be inventive and take whatever liberties you would like. I encourage each of you to do your "own thing" and make your creation yours! Your finished creation is yours to do with as you please.

Screenshots are resized and compressed for faster loading. Don't forget to SAVE your work often.

This tutorial is written in and for PSP Version 7.04 and assumes you have a working knowledge of PSP at a beginners - intermediate level. I am sure this can easily be done in Version 6 with a few adjustments in paths but I have only used Version 7 so I can't make promises *S*

FOR THIS TUTORIAL YOU WILL NEED:
JASC's PSP (30 day free trial)- You can get it HERE
Super Blade Pro ~~ You may purchase or download the demo HERE
Dee's Blue Crystal Blade Pro Preset ~~ You can get this preset and many others HERE
**Unzip into your Environments and Images Folder in SBP
Jax's Inner Bevel Preset ~~ You can get it HERE
**Unzip into your PSP Preset Folder

PLEASE NOTE: If you have the download version of PSP, not the boxed version, and have not downloaded the extra shapes provided by JASC, you will need to download them HERE to complete this tutorial.

Step 1:
Open a new image 400x400, 16 million colors, transparent background. You want to have plenty of room to work with and will be resizing your finished creation before you are finished. Set your foreground color to Black and your background color to White.

Step 2:
Add a new layer, name it map. Activate your preset shapes tool, scroll to the Americas shape, antialias checked, retain style and create as vector unchecked.

Starting in the upper left corner of your image, draw out your map to the lower right corner. I used coordinates 30,30 to 344,328. This leaves some room for decorating at the end.

Step 3:
Go to Selections-->Select All (Ctrl+A). Selections-->Float (Ctrl+F). Go to Effects-->Plugins-->Super Blade Pro. Click on the arrow to open your presets, navigate to D_blue crystal.q9q and apply.

Deselect (Ctrl+D) and Save.

Step 4:
Here is where the fun starts. We are going to start exploring PSP now. LOL Go to Colors-->Greyscale. Colors-->Increase Color Depth-->16 Million Colors.

This will keep your map glittery when we apply colors to the different areas.

Step 5:
Visualize your image into three long rectangular shapes. Activate your selection tool, set to rectangle, feather=2, antialias UNchecked.

Draw out your first rectangle so it takes one third of the map across.

Go to Selections-->Float. Save.

Step 6:
Go to Effects-->Enhance Photo-->Manual Color Correction.

You make your selection by clicking the top left corner in the left pane and dragging across your image. UNcheck the two option boxes. UNcheck the Freehand selections. Choose Pure Colors in the Color Category. Click on Preset Colors, choose Red.

Deselect and Save.

Step 7:
Draw your second rectangle tight into your first one, make sure they meet or even overlap a little. Remember to include all of the center section of your map. Selections-->Float.

Go to your Manual Color Correction, select your area in the left pane. This time click on the Custom Color box, choose white, click OK. Deselect and Save.

Deselect and Save.

Step 8:
With your selection tool, choose the remaining bottom third of your map. Selections-->Float. Go to your Manual Color Corrections, select your area in the left pane. Make sure Pure Color is selected in your Color category, click on Preset colors and choose Blue. Click OK. Deselect and Save.

Step 9:
Go to Effects-->3D-->Drop Shadow and apply the following settings:

(Offsets=3; Opacity=60; Blur=4.7)

Step 10:
We now want to tube our map, we will be using it shortly. Make a copy of your Image (Shift+D). On your copy go to Layers-->Merge-->Merge Visible. There is a lot of excess area around the map, so I cropped it using the crop tool.

After you have your crop box around your map, click on Crop Image in your Tool Options Box. Go to Files-->Export-->Picture Tube. Name your tube, click OK. I named mine md-americas.

You can now close the copy of your image.

Step 11:
You should now be back on your original image. Choose the color that you want for your background. I used white and added a slight blind effect. You can use any color you would like and any texture, if so desired. Activate layer1 and flood fill with your color. Go to Layers-->Merge-->Merge All Visible. Save.

Step 12:
Change your background color to any color other than the one you used for your background. Go to Images-->Add Border. Make sure that symmetric is checked and add a border of 10 pixels. Use your magic wand (tolerance and feather=0) to select your border. Activate your picture tube and navigate to your saved map tube scaled to about 35-40.

Apply your tube inside the selected area until you have your border filled. Keep selected.

Step 13:
We are almost done now. *S* Go to Effects-->3D-->Inner Bevel and apply the Niche preset. Go to Selections-->Invert. Effects-->3D-->Cutout and apply the following settings.

(Offsets=4; Opacity=100; Blur=10.7)

Reapply your cutout, but this time change your offsets to Minus 4. Deselect and Save.

Step 14:
Go to Effects-->Sharpen-->Unsharp Mask. Apply the following settings. This gives your image a nice sharp look.

(Radius=0.90; Strength=50; Clipping=5)

You are basically done with your Americas Image. At this point you may want to add some text, stars, eagles, etc. We advise that you do each of your decorations on a new layer to make it easier for you to move around.

When you have completed your decorations you will want to resize your image to send to your groups. Go to Layers-->Merge-->All (flatten). Go to Images-->Resize and resize to what you want your finished size to be. I used 350 pixels on the longest side for mine. Go to Effects-->Sharpen-->Unsharp Mask and use the same settings as before.

We hope you have enjoyed this tutorial as much as we did creating it. I want to thank Jax for giving me the opportunity to present this to you. I think you should all write to her and encourage her to write her own tutorials *winks* E-mail Jax.

If you have any problems, comments or questions please do not hesitate to E-mail me.

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If you would like to use this tutorial for group settings, please contact me. Just click on the above mail slot *S*

 

Tutorial written and created by Patti Wavinak for Moon's Designs. These Tutorials are copyrighted by law. You may LINK to them only. You may not remove any of the graphics, zip files or html within these pages to reproduce these Tutorials, without the expressed permission of Moon's Designs. These pages may not be removed from this website and sent via e-mail, nor saved, stored or archived in files in YahooGroups or other mailing list sites, nor may they be translated and placed on another site.
Creations made from these tutorials are your creations.
Moon's Designs holds the copyright to all selections, original tubes and original images that I have created and provided for use within my tutorials. Page backgrounds and images are created exclusively for this website and may not be downloaded or used without written permission.
If you would like to use any of my tutorials for group lessons please contact me.

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