Created April 1, 2002 © Copyright Moon's Designs
Property of Moon's Designs
This is my 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.

 

This tutorial was last updated on May 26, 2003

Congratulations! You have decided to take the plunge and create your very own graphics. I remember when I first downloaded the trial version of JASC's PSP 7.0. I was so excited and quite anxious to learn everything about it, as fast as possible. I looked at the manual, looked at the PSP and was totally lost! Then I discovered tutorials. *smiles* They truly were Godsends, but I still had some problems with figuring out how to find a certain gradient or pattern and what the different tools could (or should) do.

I found tubes, gradients, brushes, and plugins, downloaded and unzipped as fast as my little fingers would go. Big mistake! I soon had a mess. Nothing was organized; my PSP was getting slower and taking longer to load. What was I doing wrong?

I have recently been receiving a lot of e-mail and Instant Messages from other newbies who have problems on these same issues and more. It is for them that I am writing this tutorial. I don't mind the e-mail or the messages; I am hoping to help others who are having the same problem and don't know how to reach me. This tutorial will be a work in progress, as I am sure other issues that are not discussed here will come up. Today we will touch on the tool bars, setting up folders, and preferences. There will also be a Questions and Answers section at the end that will briefly touch on some other things. I do have a tutorial written on Installing Plugins in PSP7. You'll want to look that one over when you are finished here.

PSP is a VERY powerful graphics program. I have found that you are always learning about new techniques and how to utilize the tools in the most effective way. It is my goal to help teach you about the different tools and how to achieve different effects, using primarily PSP. I am amazed at how popular Moon's Designs has become. We are now averaging over 900 Unique Visitors and over 3,000 page hits PER DAY. The time has come to ask for donations to keep this site free for you. If you have found that I have helped you to learn PSP in an easy way and can afford $1.00 or more, please click on the donation button below.

 

PSP7 Essentials

Moon's Designs proudly presents PSP7 Essentials - a video CD where you
will visually learn how to use PSP7

CLICK HERE to learn more, view the demo and Ordering Information

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There is so much to discuss regarding your toolbars. There is the basic toolbar, the tool palette, and the color palette. Let's start off with your basic toolbar. As you work in PSP, you will find yourself using some of the commands more frequently than others. There are 5 main window toolbars that can be customized. You can add additional buttons, remove what you don't use, or rearrange to your liking. By customizing your toolbar, your can access the commands more quickly.

These are your five basic toolbars that can be customized. The ones shown below are the defaults without any customizing.

Standard Toolbar

Web Toolbar

Photo Toolbar

Effects Toolbar

Browser Toolbar

To customize a toolbar, you need to open the Toolbar dialog box. You can open the dialog box in one of two ways. Go to View-->Toolbars and click on the toolbar you wish to customize, then click the Customize button. You must hi-lite the toolbar you want to customize before the Customize button will show up.

Or you can open the dialog box by right-clicking a background area on the toolbar and choosing Customize from the menu. After you choose Customize you will get the following window.

To add a button, click the name of the button in the "Available toolbar buttons" list. In the "Current toolbar buttons" list, click the name of the button that is directly below where you want to add the new button. Click Add Button to move the button from the Available list to the Current list.

To remove a button, click the name of the button in the "Current toolbar buttons" list. Click the Remove button and it will move to the "Available toolbar buttons" list.

You can rearrange, or move a button, by dragging it within the Current list or by using the Move Up and Move Down buttons. To return the toolbar to its original settings, click the Reset button.

After you have finished customizing your toolbar, click the Close button to close the dialog box and apply the new settings.

Everyone's toolbars will be set up differently. You will probably be customizing quite frequently as you start using the same feature over and over. This is how I have mine set up.

On the left-hand side of your work area is your tool palette. I have the name of each tool listed next to the icon. You can find a great deal of information regarding each tool by clicking on the Help Section in PSP. I have found that the most commonly used tools for the beginner are the Mover, Selection, Magic Wand, Picture Tube Flood Fill and Text. Use the Mover tool to move a selection marquee or a layer. Left click on your object and drag with your mouse. The Selection tool makes a selection using a specific shape. If you want a softer edge you can feather your selection, the higher the number the softer your edge will be. Antialias produces a smooth edge by partially filling in pixels along the edge making them semitransparent. If you don't have antialias checked, your edges will appear more jagged. The Magic Wand selects contents instead of defining edges. The most commonly used value is the RGB value. When you click on the magic wand you will see a marquee that surrounds the selection, this is commonly referred to as Marching Ants. Picture Tube adds tubes to your image. Flood Fill will fill in from your Color Palette. We will be discussing the Color Palette in more depth shortly. Text tool is what is used to add text or dingbats to your image.

The color palette is one of the most useful tools for creating images, but can also be one of the most confusing for the beginner. By default, the Color Palette is "docked" on the right side of your work area. You can move it to almost any area on your screen, although I personally leave mine where it is.

On the very top of your Color Palette you will find the Solid Colors Panel. This displays the last solid colors you used for your foreground and background. The left box is your foreground color and the right box is your background color. Clicking the double-pointed arrow (or Color Switcher) will switch your colors. If you left click on your color box you will get a display of the color dialog box with the color palette in it.

Right clicking on the color box will display your most recent colors used.

Next is the Available Colors Panel. This displays either a rainbow color picker or the color palette from the active image, depending on your preference settings. Clicking this area selects solid colors for paintings or drawings.

Now we come to the Active Styles Panel. This is where you can select a solid color, gradient or pattern. The top box is your foreground and the bottom is your background. Clicking on the far right arrow on your box displays a menu for selecting a style type. The paint brush is your solid color, the stripes is your gradient, the dots is your pattern and the circle with the line through it is Null, and closes that style.

The next area is your Active Textures Panel. This displays current foreground and background textures for painting and drawing.

The "Lock" Check box lets you lock the settings of the Color Palette. My advice is to have the lock box checked 99% of the time, if you don't then every time you switch to a new tool the colors will also change to the last colors used for that tool.

Okay, now that we know what all of those things mean in your color palette, let's talk about your gradients, patterns and textures. Click on the stripe button, , to get to your gradients. Click on your gradient. You will get the following dialog box.

Clicking on the down arrow next to the gradient will bring up all of your gradients that you can choose from. I'm using the Metallic gradient that comes with PSP for my illustrations.

There are four different styles that you can use for your gradient. Below shows how each style changes the appearance of your gradient.

Linear Gradient	Rectangular Gradient
Sunburst Gradient	Radial Gradient

Horizontal and Vertical sets where you would like the horizontal or vertical center of your gradient to be . These options are not available in the Linear Gradient style. You can also drag the control needle to change the options automatically.

In the Linear Gradient style you can set the angle to change the direction of your gradient. The range is 0-360.

You can use the Repeats in all gradient styles. Use this when you want to show how many times to repeat the gradient pattern in your image.

Check the Invert gradient box to invert the colors.

When you have selected all of your options, click the OK button. The dialog box closes and the gradient will appear in your styles box.

PATTERNS ~~ Click on the dots button, , to use your patterns. Click on the pattern, the following dialog box will appear.

Patterns are available for saving in your patterns folder only as a .bmp, but you can use an open image as a pattern. Click on the down arrow next to your pattern. You will then have a number of patterns to choose from. If you want to use an open image in your work area, scroll to the top and locate it.

Entering a number in the Scale box allows you to change the size of the pattern. The range is from 10 to 250 percent of the pattern's actual size. You can also change the angle of your pattern by either entering a number or dragging the needle to set your angle. The range is 0 to 359.

Click OK and the dialog box closes and the pattern appears in your styles box.

TEXTURES ~~ Textures work like your styles, however they are a separate feature so you can use the texture and style together. Use the first button to turn your texture on and the second button to turn the texture off. After setting the texture to on you will get the following dialog box.

Click the down arrow next to your texture to display the textures installed with PSP.

After you have chosen your texture, click OK and it will appear in your Texture box. Below is an example on how your texture will look. The first illustration is a 100x100 square using only green in the Styles Solid box. I then activated the texture foreground box and chose the grass pattern.

What a difference a little texture can make. *grin* Just remember to close your textures box when you are finished using it. I don't know how many times I didn't do that, went to do another tutorial and couldn't figure out why my flood fill wasn't showing up the way it was supposed to. LOL.

You can use your textures feature with the Paint Brush, Clone Brush, Retouch, Eraser, Airbrush, Flood Fill, Text, Draw, and Preset Shapes. You can use your textures with either your foreground or your background fills. Each tool applies your texture differently. I think a tutorial on this would be advisable and will work on one in the future.

It's now time to take a break and stretch those legs. Grab a cup of coffee or a glass of pop and then come back and we'll continue on to the next section.

FOLDERS AND PREFERENCES