Created September 2, 2004© Copyright Moon's Designs
Property of Moon's Designs
This is my creation, any similarity to other tutorials on the
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Please do not copy or place this tutorial or
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Congratulations! You want to learn more about
creating your own graphics, do some editing on your photographs, and/or
restore old photographs without the hassle of having to learn some
really advanced techniques. However, you aren't really sure which
PSP is best for you. While most people are familiar with previous
versions of PSP and how powerful it is, very few are familiar with
PSP Studio. It is my goal to show you some of the things that are
available in PSP Studio and then you can decide if this is something
that will help you in your creative endeavors.
Screenshots are resized and compressed for faster
loading.
What is PSP Studio? PSP Studio is a condensed
version of PSP9 that includes some powerful tools from other versions
of PSP and allows you let your creativity shine.
When you first open your PSP Studio you will
have a Get Start Fast Image in the middle of your workspace. As you
click on the individual icons, Improve; Enhance; Restore; Create;
and Craft, you will have additional information and suggestions where
you can get started in the Learning Center. This will appear each
time you open your Studio until you UNcheck the box that says "Show
this screen with Paint Shop Pro Studio launches". Click on the
X in the upper right corner of the image to remove it. You can get
this back by going to the Help menu.
After you are done with the Get Started Fast
screen, your User Interface will look similar to this.
Your Learning Center, with a number of quick
guides is located (by default) in the left edge of your UI, next to
your tools toolbar. Your work space includes your Menu Bar, Standard
Toolbar, Photo Toolbar, and the Tools Option Palette on the top. To
the right of your workspace is your Materials Palette, Layers Palette,
and Overview Window. At the bottom of your Workspace is your Status
Toolbar. There is also a Browser Toolbar that you can activate by
either going to your View Menu/Toolbars or right clicking on a blank
area and going to Toolbars. We'll review the toolbars, palettes and
your menus in just a few minutes.
Toolbars & Palettes
In PSP Studio you have a limited amount of toolbars
and palettes, but you have everything that you need to work with your
graphics and photos and do a lot of enhancement in one step. Your
toolbars are Browser; Standard, Photo; Status; and Tools. Let's review
what your toolbars include.
Standard Toolbar
Your Standard Toolbar has your icons for activating
a New Image, Open, Browse, Scanner, Import from Scanner or Camera,
Save, Save As, Print, Undo, Redo, Zoom In, Zoom Out, Rotate 90°
Counterclockwise, Rotate 90° Clockwise, and Launch Paint Shop
Pro Album (if you have it on your computer).
Photo Toolbar
Your Photo Toolbar has an additional Dropdown
for Enhanced Photo (see below), One Step Photo Fix, Automatic Color
Balance, Automatic Contrast Enhancement, Automatic Saturation Enhancement,
Edge Preserving Smooth, Sharpen More, Fill Flash, Backlighting and
Red Eye Correction.
Enhanced Photo Dropdown
Status Toolbar
The left side of your status toolbar will
tell you what tool you are on and give you information regarding that
tool. On the right side of your Status Toolbar it will tell you what
coordinates your cursor is at and the size of your image.
Browse Toolbar
The Browser Toolbar only shows active icons
when you have your PSP Browse open. Most of this can be activated
while right clicking in your Browse. We will review all of the Browse
options on the Getting Started in PSP Studio CD set.
Tools Toolbar
While you don't have every tool that is available
in other versions of PSP, such as the Airbrush, you have everything
that you need to make some very creative graphics.
Your palettes include the Layers, Learning Center,
Materials, Overview, and Tool Options.
Layers Palette
Your layers palette lists all of the layers
on your image. You can name your layers on the left side of the palette,
and on the right side is where you can "hide" the layer,
change the opacity, use a blend mode, linkset and lock transparency.
Learning Center Palette
Your Learning Center has a number of quick
guides in several different categories. Many of the quick guides also
use Jasc's Photo Album. While it is not necessary to have Photo Album
to use PSP Studio they do work hand in hand with each other.
Materials Palette
Your Materials Palette now has 3 tabs across
the top. There is the Frame Tab (shown above) that displays an outer
Hue rectangle with an inner Saturation rectangle. It also displays
White, Black, and 3 shades of Grey. The second tab is the Rainbow
Tab that shows the Available Colors panel and the third tab is your
Swatches tab. Your Materials Palette is where you choose if you want
a color, gradient, pattern for your foreground or background material
and you may also use a Texture in conjunction with the color, gradient,
or pattern that you have selected.
Overview Palette
Your Overview Palette has two tabs, Preview
and Info. The Preview tab shows a thumbnail of the image that you
are working on and the Info tab shows your Image size, color depth,
how much memory you have used and your cursor position.
Tool Options Palette
Depending on which tool you are using you
will have a variety of different options for that tool on your Tool
Options Palette. The screenshot I am showing is of the Pan/Zoom tool.
At the beginning of the Tool Options Palette is a Presets dropdown.
Some of your tools have presets provided from JASC, while others don't.
You will get this window when you click the down arrow under presets.
If there are any presets for this tool, they
will be listed in the white area. You can save any setting that you
have created by clicking on the floppy icon. Click the curved arrow
icon to go back to the default settings for your tool. New to Presets
is a Resource Manager, which is the 3rd icon down the side and the
folders icon will bring you to your File Locations in Preferences.
You can do some customizing to your workspace
with the ability to dock, float, resize and move your toolbars and
palettes. All palettes, whether they are docked to the side or floating
on your workspace has a pushpin button on the top of your palette.
When the pushpin is pointing down it will remain fully displayed.
When you click on the pushpin, so that it is
pointing to the left, the palette will roll up so that only the title
bar is visible. I'm showing the Learning Center, which is docked on
the left side of my workspace, and below you can see how the Learning
Center rolled up out of the way and is easily accessible for when
I need to use it again.
You can do this with all of your palettes and
just hover your mouse next to your palette to have it visible for
you. You can also autohide any of your toolbars, however you must
drag them down to your work area in order to see the pushpin. This
is particularly hand for your tools toolbar and having these toolbars
and palettes rolled up gives you more working space with less clutter.
You also have the ability to display all open
images in a tabbed format, instead of having them minimized at the
bottom of your screen. Go to Window/Tabbed Documents to turn this
option on or off. When you choose to use tabbed documents your image
will cover the entire workspace and the tab across the top will be
in bold. All of your open images will have a tab.
MENUS
Across the top of your Workspace are your various
menus; File, Edit, View, Image, Effects, Adjust, Layers, Objects,
Selections, Window and Help. You need to have an image open for all
of these menus to appear. Let's quickly review what is available in
the menus for PSP Studio.
File Menu
In the Import Submenu you have Twain, Importing
from Scanner or Camera. In the Export Submenu you have Photosharing,
Jpeg Optimizer, Gif Optimizer, and Png Optimizer. In your Preferences
you have your General Program Preferences, File Format Association,
File Locations, Reset Preferences and Auto Update Options. Please
note that you do not have an Auto Save in your Preferences so make
sure that you are constantly saving your work in case of a crash.
Edit Menu
View Menu
Image Menu
Effects Menu
The Submenu for the different effects
are limited. In 3D you have Cutout; DropShadow; InnerBevel;
OuterBevel. Art Media Effects include Black Pencil; Brush STroke;
Charcoal; Colored Chalk; Colored Pencil; and Pencil. Artistic Effects
has Aged Newspaper; Chrome; Colored Edges; Hotwax Coating; Posterize;
and Sepia Toning. Distortion Effects include Pixelate; Ripple; Wave;
and Wind. Edge Effects are Enhance; Enhance More; Find All; Find Horizontal
and Find Vertical. Geometric Effects includes Circle; Cylinder Horizontal
and Cylinder Vertical. Your Texture Effects are Emboss; Fine Leather;
Fur; Mosaic Glass; Rough Leather; Sandstone; Sculpture; Texture; Tiles
and Weave.
Adjust Menu
In your Photo Fix we have Backlighting, Fill
Flash and Red Eye Removal. Backlighting and Fill Flash are two new
Filters and you can view what they can do HERE.
Your Color Balance submenu includes Automatic Color Balance; Fade
Correction and Negative Image. Brightness and Contrast also includes
Clarify. Hue and Saturation submenu's is where you will find Colorize
and Hue/Saturation/Lightness. Add/Remove Noise has Add Noise; Automatic
Small Scratch Remover; JPEG Artifact Removal; Despeckle; and Edge
Preserving Smooth. Blur includes Blur, Blur More and Gaussian Blur.
Sharpen has Sharpen, Sharpen More and Unsharp Mask. Softness includes
the Soft Focus filter; Soften and Soften More.
Layers Menu
Objects Menu
Your Objects Menu is one that you will want
to use when working with Vectors.
Selections Menu
In the Modify submenu you can Expand; Contract;
Select Similar; Select Color Range; Feather; Remove Specks & Holes;
and Smooth.
Window Menu
Help Menu
I didn't review everything that each menu contains,
a lot of the Screenshots are Self-Explanatory. ~smiles~ All menus,
along with the toolbars and palettes, are reviewed in the Getting
Started in PSP Studio CD.
Now you know what you can do in PSP Studio,
let's review what you can't do. You do not have the new Digital Camera
Noise Removal Filter nor the Chromatic aberration filter that are
new in PSP9. You can't create seamless patterns or tiled images for
the web and you have a limited ability to create custom shapes that
can be edited at a later date. You won't have the ability of having
the mixer palette to mix your own colors and paint with the Art Media
Brushes. You can't do screen captures in PSP Studio and you do not
receive the Animation Shop. You do not have the ability to use Scripts
nor can you customize your workspace or toolbars. You also do not
have the ability to track each editing step and undo any step at any
time.
PSP Studio is a great new product, especially
if you are a newbie to designing graphics and wanting to help enhance
photos you already have. The price is definitely affordable there
are so many things you can achieve without the added "pressure"
of learning some of the more intricate parts of PSP. Once you are
comfortable with what you can do with Studio you can always move up
to a more advanced application from JASC.
Getting Started with PSP Studio, 4 Disk CD Set,
in video/audio format is now available. This CD set is geared for
the Beginner user of Studio and also for those who are frustrated
with previous versions of PSP. You can learn more about what is on
this set by going HERE.
If you have any problems, comments or questions please
do not hesitate to E-mail
me.
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Tutorial written and created by Patti Wavinak
for Moon's Designs. These Tutorials are copyrighted by law. You may
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Creations made from these tutorials are your creations.
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and original images that I have created and provided for use within
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