Created August 17, 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

I had one of my beginning students ask me about being able to add Patterns, Gradients and Textures to her PSP. As with most of us, she opens a pattern in PSP and it will show when she wants to use that particular pattern, however she was wondering if additions could be installed ~~ such as my seamless tiles.

To use patterns and textures in your PSP, they need to be in bitmap (.bmp) format. Bitmap files are very large, hence I offer my tiles for download I have them in .jpg format to make the site faster for downloading. You can easily convert several files into a single file format by using the Batch Conversion Utility, and that is how this tutorial was borne.

This tutorial will also help those whose Operating Systems or ISP's (such as AOL) will only allow you to save graphics from the Internet as a .bmp. You can convert all of those to .jpg and save an enormous amount of room on your hard drive. However, after you convert them, you will need to delete the .bmp's from your drive to free up the added space.

This tutorial will show you how to convert my .jpg tiles to .bmp patterns, however, you can use this method for converting any file.

This tutorial is written in and for PSP Version 7.04 and assumes you have a working knowledge of PSP at a beginners level.

You will need:

JASC's PSP (30 day free trial)- You can get it HERE

As I mention in my Beginners Guide to PSP7, you don't want to bog down your PSP with extra things. Keep yourself organized by setting up separate folders on your computer outside of PSP. I have a folder called PSP1 on my hard drive. I have sub folders for tubes, patterns, gradients, etc. We will be talking about my patterns folder for this tutorial and converting my tiles. In my patterns folder I have a sub folder called moons, and will be converting my .jpg tiles to that folder.

Step 1:
Have the tiles, or whatever you want converted, in one folder. Set up a separate folder for your patterns with a sub folder called moons.

Step2:
Open your PSP. Go to File-->Batch Conversion.

You will then get this dialog box.

Step 3:
Use the Look In drop down box to navigate to the folder containing the tiles you want converted.

Step 4:
From the Output Settings Type drop-down list, select a new file format for the images. In this case scroll down to the Windows or OS/2 Bitmap. If converting from .bmp to .jpg scroll up to the JPEG-JFIF option.

Step 5:
Select the Output folder (destination) by clicking on the browse button and navigating to your moons sub folder in your patterns folder.

Step 6:
Select the files that you want converted. If you press the Select All button, it will convert all of the files in that folder.

If you have a variety of file extensions in that folder and only want the .jpg files selected, use the Files of type, by default it states All Files, drop down to select those files.

Step 7:
By clicking the Select All button, it will start the conversion. If you did not click the Start All, click the Start button to start the conversion.

The Batch Conversion Status box opens, and the batch conversion starts.

After the files have been converted, either click OK to exit the dialog box, or click the Save Log button to save the progress messages to a text file. Click the Save Log button opens the Save As dialog box. Type in a name for the file and click Save. PSP saves the information with a *.log extension.

All of your files are now converted. If you want both file types on your computer then you don't need to do anything else. If you only want the files that you converted then you must go to your original folder and delete those files.

Now let's make sure that you can view your new tiles in your patterns folder.

Step 8:
Go to Files-->Preferences-->File Locations. Click on the Patterns tab.

In the second box browse to your Patterns folder. Make sure Enable this path AND Use sub folders is checked. If you don't check the use sub folders it will now find your moons folder. Click OK.

Step 9:
Open your Foreground Styles Pattern, , click edit, press the down arrow menu, and voila! All of your tile patterns now appear.

I hope this tutorial has helped you understand about using the Batch Conversion option in PSP. I was surprised how many weren't aware of it, or didn't know how to use it. As always, if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me.