Capricious Tuts

Create a Jewel 2

2012-02-20T17:28:00.000-05:00

After posting the last tutorial for making a gem or jewel, I spent some time trying to figure out how to make it look more like a faceted cut gem. This tutorial and the sample shown in the image above is the result. It's still not 100% photo-realistic, but it's a bit closer than the last tutorial which is below this post.

This tutorial was written 20 February 2012 in PSP 9 but should work in other versions of the program. There are some optional basic vector editing steps at the very end of this tutorial so this one may be of interest for that reason even if making a jewel is not.

Filter needed: Eye Candy 3.1 > HSB Noise
The HSB Noise filter is also available in Eye Candy 4000, and again in Eye Candy 5 Textures > Texture Noise.

1. To begin, open a new transparent canvas 400 x 400 pixels. (The size your choose for your canvas is up to you. I tend to make the canvas about twice as large as the finished jewel will be.) Choose whatever color you'd like your jewel to be in your Foreground/Stroke Materials palette. If you'd like to follow along exactly with my screenshots, I used #3D469D. Flood fill your canvas with the color you've chosen.

2. Go to Effects > Plugins > Eye Candy 3.1 > HSB Noise. Enter the settings as follows (also shown in the screenshot below) - Hue Variation: 15; Saturation Variations: 30; Brightness Variation: 100; Opacity Variation: 0; Lump Width: 4; Lump Height: 100; Random Seed: 1. And click the Checkmark to apply the effect.

You can fiddle with those settings as you'd like. The only one which really needs to stay as is, is the Lump Height. That will create the vertical striation which will be necessary in the next step. If the pattern is horizontal instead, the next step won't work properly.

3. Next, go to Effects > Distortion Effects > Polar Coordinates. Select the settings of Rectangular to polar and Transparent. Settings shown in the screenshot below. Click OK to apply the effect.

*After this step, if you'd like to follow the additional shape steps below, duplicate your canvas two times before moving on to step 4. The two duplicated canvases can be minimized to use later.

4. Activate your Selection Tool & choose a Circle as your Selection Type.

5. Place your cursor in the center of your canvas. You can see the exact coordinates by looking down in the bottom right of your PSP window. Area is shown in the next screenshot.

6. Once you've located the center, click & hold your mouse button to drag the selection out to the size you'd like. For my example, my canvas was 400 x 400 pixels so the center is x:200, y:200, and I've drawn out a selection which is 200 x 200 pixels.

7. Invert the selection (Selections > Invert) and hit Delete on the keyboard. Your canvas should resemble mine as shown in the screenshot below.

I select the most central area of the canvas because the colors get blurrier the further from the center you go. This is just my personal preference - not necessary if you like how yours looks.

8. To trim the canvas down and remove all the excess space, use the Crop tool.

9. The next step will add a reflection to the top of the jewel. Activate your Ellipse tool with the settings as follows (also shown in the screenshot below although a the image is a bit blurry so the main settings to be sure of are noted): Create On Vector checked, Line width set to 0, Anti-alias checked.

10. In the Materials Palette, set your Foreground/Stroke Properties to Black (#000000) and the Background/Fill Properties to White (#FFFFFF). Change the Background/Fill from Color to Gradient, and choose Foreground-Background with an Angle of 0 and Repeats at 0.

11. With the Ellipse tool still activated, draw an ellipse near the top of your round jewel. Your canvas should resemble mine as below.

12. In the Layers Palette, change the Blend Mode on that top ellipse to Screen, and lower the opacity to about 60%.

13. Merge visible layers (Layers > Merge > Merge Visible), and the round jewel is finished. My end result is shown in the next screenshot. Yours should look somewhat similar.

If you wish to add any type of setting, there are steps for a bezel setting & prong setting in my previous gemstone tutorial which you can follow & use for this new jewel if you'd like. Those settings can be found in the following tutorial - Create a Gemstone.

Alternate Shapes - Octagon
1 -3. Follow Steps 1 through 3 above to create the basic pattern which will become the jewel. Or, if you duplicated the canvas after step 3, just activate one of those minimized canvases to use for the next steps.

4. Activate your Selection Tool and choose Octagon for your Selection Type.

At this point, you could choose any Selection type you'd like for a different shaped jewel.

5. Draw out the selection you'd like - something similar to mine in the screenshot below.

6. Invert the selection (Selections > Invert), and hit Delete on the keyboard.

7. Next activate your Rectangle Shape Tool and set your Foreground/Stroke color to Black (#000000) and Background/Fill to White (#FFFFFF) and change the Fill from Color to Gradient. See step 10 above for those settings. This will become the reflection on top of the octagonal shape. Draw out a rectangle with the bottom edge as wide as you want the reflection to be. The top edge will overhang the octagon, but we'll fix that in a moment. Your canvas should resemble mine as below at this point.

8. Leave the rectangle as a vector shape, and activate the Object Selection Tool. Click on the rectangle with that tool so that it is selected & active.

9. Hover over the top right corner of the rectangle with the Object Selection Tool. You should see an outline of a rectangle with square corners. Still hovering over that same corner, push the Ctrl key on your keyboard. The shape should change from a rectangle to a trapezoid. I tried to capture the shape that will be displayed in the screenshot, but it wouldn't show up for me. The screenshot below though has the corner you need to click circled in red.

10. With the Ctrl key held down, use your mouse button to click on the upper right corner and push toward the center of the shape. Angle the sides of the new shape so that it follows the shape of the jewel.

11. Again, change the blend mode for that trapezoid shape to Screen & lower the opacity to about 60%. Settings for that are shown in the screenshot in step 12 above in the round jewel section. Merge visible layers (Layers > Merge > Merge Visible), and crop the canvas to the jewel. Resize to suit yourself. Your finished jewel should look similar to mine below.

Alternate Shapes - Pear/Teardrop
1-3. Follow the original steps 1 through 3 to create the basic pattern we'll use to fill the jewel. Or, if you duplicated the canvas after step 3, just activate one of those original canvases to use for the next steps.

4. Activate your Ellipse tool. In the Materials Palette, set the Foreground/Stroke properties to Black (#000000) and the Background/Fill properties to White (#FFFFFF). Change the Background/Fill from a Color to Gradient with 0 Angle and 0 Repeats. (Screenshot of those settings is shown in Step 10 above in the Round Jewel section).

5. Draw an Ellipse (line width of 0) positioned near the top of the blue circle. My placement is shown in the screenshot below.

6. Activate your pen tool. It's the tool that's shown above in the screenshot, one up from the bottom. We're going to do a bit of vector editing, but I promise it will be painless. Right click on the ellipse and choose Convert To Path.

7. With the Pen Tool still active, click on the top node. Clicking on it will make it the active node so we can make some changes to the basic shape. After clicking on the top node, your canvas should look like mine below.

8. Your Pen Tool should still be active. Right click on the top node we just activated. Choose Node Type > Line Before.

9. Again, with your Pen Tool, right click on that top node once more. This time choose Node Type > Line After. Yours will look like mine below.

10. Next, with the Pen Tool still active, click on the left side node so that it becomes active. Hold down the Shift key on your keyboard, and with your mouse, click on the right side node. Holding the Shift key lets you choose both the nodes at the same time so you can move them together. You'll see a dotted line connect those two side nodes which you've selected.

11. Next, click on that larger dot in the center of the dotted line connecting the two side nodes. I've circled the spot to click in the next screenshot.

12. Once you've clicked on that spot, hold the mouse button in while pulling downward. That will shift the location of the side nodes so that the shape become more bottom-heavy / pear-shaped.

And that's it, all finished with the vector editing.

13. Activate the Magic Wand tool and click anywhere outside the pear shape. Your canvas should look like mine below.

14. Smooth the selection (Selections > Modify > Smooth...).

15. Use the following settings: Smoothing amount - 10, Corner scale - 2, Anti-alias & Preserve corners both checked. This will make the shape we're creating quite a bit smoother on the edges. The screenshot below shows the difference in the two preview panes.

16. Activate the jewel layer in your Layers Palette (named Raster 1 in my layers). Hit delete on the keyboard to remove the excess color.

17. Activate the top gradient shape layer again, and resize by 50%. Be sure to UNcheck the All Layers box.

18. Change the blend mode on this layer to Screen & lower the opacity to about 60%. Move the top shape upward so that it's near the top of the point.

19. Merge visible layers (Layers > Merge > Merge Visible) and then crop the canvas to trim the excess blank space around the jewel. Yours should look something like mine below.

This was another pretty long tutorial with quite a few steps but quite a few options too. I hope someone will find it useful, and I also hope that everything was explained well enough for you to follow. As always, feedback is very much appreciated - good, bad or otherwise. Thanks for trying my tut! Any results you create from doing my tutorial are yours to do with as you please.

Create a Gemstone

2012-01-10T20:59:00.001-05:00

I have a new tutorial to share on how to create a gemstone. This tutorial was written 10 January 2012 in PSP 9, but it should work in other versions of the program. You can see the end result of the method I use, and which is shared in this tutorial, in the image above. Just wanted to add a note of thanks for the feedback on my first tut. Glad to know that everyone was able to follow it without any problems, and I hope that will be the case for this one as well.

Filter needed: Xenofex 1.1 (I don't think Alien Skin still offers this filter. It's one I've had for a fairly long time.)

1. To begin, open up a new transparent canvas. I usually start with the size of the papers I'm making so for my example, I'll be opening an 800 x 800 pixel canvas. In your materials palette, choose a light shade of whatever color you want your gem to be in the Foreground box. Using the Paint Bucket tool, fill the entire canvas with that light color. In my example, I've used color #E0E0E0, a very light gray color because I want to try to create a diamond.

2. On your menu, choose Adjust > Add/Remove Noise > Add Noise. In the box that opens, select Gaussian, 75% noise, and Monochrome checked, and hit the OK button to apply the effect.

I usually start at around 75%, but adjust that amount to suit your own idea. The more noise you add, the more variation in the gem you'll have in the end result. There's always that handy undo button if you don't like how it looks.

3. After the noise has been applied, you're ready to apply the Xenofex filter. Go to Effects > Plugins > Xenofex 1.1 > Origami. I chose 15 pixels for the Fold Size and 50 for the Random Seed. Those settings are shown in the screenshot below.

The fold size variable will determine the size of the facets, and the random seed slider will just create some randomness in the resulting pattern. Play with both of those settings until you see a result you like. Once you're satisfied, press the checkmark to apply it to your canvas.

4. Right now, you should have a canvas which looks something similar to mine in the screenshot below. Now you're ready to pick out the spot in the canvas that you want to use for the gem.

5. Activate your Selection Tool and choose Circle in the drop down menu for your Selection type. Feather will be set to 0, and put the checkmark in the Anti-alias box. Anti-alias will keep the edges of your circle selection smoother.

6. With the circle selection tool active, click anywhere in your canvas to start drawing out a selection area. Watch in the lower right of your status bar inside PSP to see the size you're selecting if you have a specific size you want the gem to be. Or, if you see a certain area of the canvas that you definitely want to use for your gem, place your cursor over the center of that area, click and hold as you draw out the size you want. Wherever you click first will be the center of your selection. I tend to find an area with a lighter center and darker edges to make it seem more realistic.

In the screenshot below, you can see the size of my selection - 200 x 200 pixels.

7. This is an alternative method for choosing your selection area. You can draw out the selection and worry about the size of it first. Then you can move that marquee around to see how different areas of the canvas will look as your gem. Once you've drawn the selection and have the marching ants around a circular area, choose your Move Tool, right-click inside the selection & hold, then you can drag it around the canvas. That's a good way to see how different spots on the canvas will look without having to do/undo over and over.

8. Once you're satisfied with the area you've selected, copy and paste that selection as a new image. Two steps here - 'Edit > Copy' first, then 'Edit > Paste As New Image'. Yours should look something similar to mine below once you've picked an area and copied/pasted it as a new image.

Right now, the gem itself is basically finished. I usually add some kind of setting, either a bezel or a prong setting. Those steps are noted below so continue if you'd like to do the same. Make a copy of your gem canvas (have 2 separate canvases) so you can try both settings if you'd like.

Bezel Setting
1. With your new gem canvas active, increase the canvas size so that you've got some room to work. Image > Canvas Size... and add 50 pixels or so on both the width and height dimensions with center placement selected and hit the OK button to apply.

2. Activate your Magic Wand tool. (It's in the Selection Tool fly-out menu.) Click anywhere in the blank area around the gem to select the empty area. Invert your selection, Selections > Invert. Now the marching ants should be circling the edge of the gem.

3. Go to Selections > Modify > Expand. I chose 7 pixels for my example, but choose whatever size you think will look good on your gem. With the selection still active, go to Selections > Modify > Smooth and enter the following values - Smoothing amount 10, Corner scale 2, and both Anti-alias and Preserve corners checked. Hit the OK button to apply. Again, this just seems to make the bezel we're adding look a bit smoother around the edges.

4. Keep the selection active; don't deselect just yet. Add a new raster layer - this is where we'll be adding the bezel setting.

5. I'm going to add a metallic gradient so you can pick any gradient you might already have (silver, gold, bronze, etc.) or we'll make our own here. For my example, I used my pale gray color in the foreground box (#E0E0E0), and I chose a dark gray for my background (#646464). Click on your foreground color in the Materials palette to open up the palette menu. Change from the Color tab to the Gradient tab. Choose Foreground-Background gradient, with a 45° angle, 3 repeats, and Linear style, and hit the OK button.

As an alternative, if you have any of the Eye Candy filters and wanted to use a Chrome filter here, you could opt to do that rather than choosing/making a gradient to use as a fill.

6. Make sure the new raster layer we added is still the active layer in your Layers palette. Using the Paint Bucket tool, fill this selection with the gradient you just chose or made. Your canvas will look something like mine below. You can see both layers in my canvas on the right of the screenshot.

7. You can deselect now. Choose your top layer and move it to the bottom of your layers so that the metallic fill layer is on the bottom and your gem is back on top. Merge the visible layers (Layers > Merge visible), and you've got a bezel set gemstone similar to mine shown below.

Prong Setting
1. For a different result, you could choose to make a prong setting. Have your new canvas that we made in the beginning with the gemstone active. Increase your canvas size so you've got room to work. Image > Canvas Size - add 50 pixels to both the width and height dimensions with center placement selected, hit the OK button to apply.

2. I chose a gold gradient that I already had in my gradients to use for this step. Just choose one you might have that you'd like to use. I chose the gradient in my Background/Fill material box with a 0° angle, no repeats, and circular style. I also checked the Invert box, but that will be based on how your gradient is set up. Just choose whichever (checked or unchecked) allows your gradient to have the lighter shade in the center.

3. Choose your Preset Shapes tool and select the Teardrop shape. Set the Line width to 0 so that there's no outline on your shape. If you don't have a Teardrop shape, the basic Ellipse vector shape works just fine too.

4. Draw a small shape on your canvas. Leave this shape as a vector object and choose Image > Rotate > Free Rotate. Keeping it as a vector shape will keep it from getting blurry when we rotate it. In the window that opens, enter a 45° rotation, direction doesn't really matter, but make sure the All Layers box is UNchecked. That way only the new shape you just drew gets rotated, not the whole canvas. And hit the OK button to apply.

5. Move the prong where you'd like it to be on the edge of your gem and then convert it to raster.

6. Add an inner bevel to the prong. My settings are shown below. If my settings don't look very good on your result, you can play with the settings until you get something you like. The bevel will really probably depend on the size you're making, placement, etc. So my settings may not work as well on your result.

7. Duplicate the layer with your new prong then flip the duplicated layer. (Image > Flip) Duplicate your new top layer and mirror it. (Image > Mirror) Duplicate this new top layer again and choose flip again. After duplicating, flipping, and mirroring, you'll have four layers, each with a prong of its own on the four corner edges of your gem.

8. Hide the bottom layer with your gemstone in your layers palette by clicking on the eye for that layer. Merge the 4 remaining visible layers (Layers > Merge > Merge Visible) so that all the prongs are on a single layer. Once done with those steps, your canvas should look similar to mine below.

9. Unhide the gem layer by clicking on the eye beside that layer again. Make sure your merged prong layer is the one which is active in your Layers palette, and apply a large blurry drop shadow to those prongs. Effects > 3D Effects > Drop Shadow. My settings were 0, 0, 50, 10, black, and be sure to check the box for Shadow on new layer. Hit the OK button to apply.

10. Activate your gem layer (Raster 1 in my layers). Choose your Magic Wand tool again and click in the open area around the shape.

11. Activate your shadow layer in the Layers palette and hit Delete on your keyboard. That will remove the shadow around the gem shape but leave the shadow over top of the gem between the prongs and gem. Now you can merge visible and save your file. Your result should look something similar to mine as below.

This was a very long tut with a lot of different steps, but I hope it was easy enough to follow with enough screenshots to explain what I was doing in each stage. Hope everyone who tries it has learned something new and been able to create a few bits of their own. Any results you create from my tutorial are yours to do with as you please. This tutorial is based on the method I use myself when I make a gem, and any similarity to another tutorial is purely coincidence. Feedback is always appreciated! Good, bad, or otherwise :)

Create a Houndstooth Pattern

2012-01-01T09:43:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year! Thought it was time to start using this blog and share an inaugural tutorial. This tutorial was written 1 January 2012 using PSP 9. It should work in other versions of the program. The only filter needed to do this tutorial is Simple Filters - Diamond which is a free filter. It's available here if you don't already have it.

This is my first attempt at writing a tutorial so feedback would be great - good, bad or otherwise. Need more screenshots or less? More explanations or less? Thought I'd write this one up first since I used this same method to create the background on my blog here.

1. Begin by opening a new blank canvas at 200 x 200 pixels. Any size canvas is okay, but it should be square and able to be divided into 4 equal square sections.

2. Select 2 colors you'd like to use in your materials palette. A dark & light shade of the same color work well, but again, any colors are fine.

3. Choose your Selection tool, then the Custom Selection button at the top of the tool palette (as shown in the screenshot below).

4. In the window which opens, enter the following values. Top: 0; Left: 0; Right: 100; Bottom: 100 and hit the Okay button. That should select the upper left quadrant of your canvas.

5. Using the Paint Bucket tool, fill that selection with your darker shade. (Again, for my example I've used two shades of the same purple color, but use whichever color you've chosen in your materials palette.) Select none.

6. Choose your Selection Tool once more, and hit the Custom Selection button. In the window that opens, enter the following values. Top: 100; Left: 100; Right: 200; Bottom: 200 and hit the Okay button. That should select the lower right quadrant of your canvas.

7. Using the Paint Bucket tool, fill the selection with your lighter shade (or your second color if you're using different colors than I am). Select none.

Your 200 x 200 pixel canvas should look similar to mine as shown below.

8. Now open a new canvas 100 x 100 pixels. This is where we'll create the portion to fill those two open sections in the larger canvas.

9. Fill the entire smaller canvas with your darker shade. (Or if using totally different colors, just use whichever one you used to fill the upper left section of your larger canvas.)

10. Use your Selection Tool > Custom Selection again, and enter the following values. Top: 0; Left: 50; Right: 100; Bottom: 100, and hit the Okay button. That should select the right side of your smaller canvas.

11. Fill that selection with your lighter shade. (Or if using totally different colors than I am, just use whichever one you used to fill the lower right section of your larger canvas.) Select none. Your smaller canvas should look similar to mine as shown below.

Your 100 x 100 pixel canvas should now look similar to mine as shown below.

12. With your smaller canvas still active, go to Effects > Plugins > Simple > Diamonds.

Your canvas should look similar to mine below.

13. Then, under your Image menu (in PSP 9, not sure if it's in another location in other versions), select Mirror.

Your canvas should look similar to mine below.

14. Copy this small canvas. You can either do that under the Edit > Copy menu, or right click on the header bar for the canvas and choose Copy from there.

15. Make your larger canvas active once again. Add a new raster layer to the canvas and make sure this new layer is the one which is active in your layers palette.

16. Choose your Selection Tool > Custom Selection button once more and enter the following values. Top: 0; Left: 100; Right: 200; Bottom: 100 and hit the Okay button. The upper right quadrant of your canvas should be selected now.

17. Go to Edit > Paste into selection (or you can right click on the canvas header bar and choose the same option from the right-click menu). You should see the dark small corner pointing into the center of your canvas with the light small corner pointing to the upper right corner of the canvas.

Your canvas should look similar to mine as shown below.

18. Duplicate the layer you just added with the angled stripes. Now, flip & mirror that duplicated layer. Both options are located under the Image menu.

After doing both the Flip & Mirror options, your canvas should look similar to mine as shown below.

19. Once the larger 200 x 200 pixel canvas is filled like shown above, just merge all your layers together, and you can now save the file in whatever format you'd like so that you can use it as a pattern fill.

I hope you've learned how to do something new from my tutorial and that it was easy to follow. Again, any feedback would be much appreciated since this is my first attempt at actually writing a tutorial to explain how I create something. There may be other, easier ways to create this same thing, but this is just the method which I use. Any results you create from my tutorial are yours to do with as you please. Any similarity to another tutorial is coincidental & unintentional.

New blog design

2011-12-31T19:50:00.003-05:00

Just a short note. I finally spent some time on this blog today, but I didn't actually get around to writing up the inaugural tutorial to post just yet. Mainly just spent time on customizing it - first stab at doing that, but I think it's turned out fairly well for a first attempt. lol I'm hoping to get a tut posted tomorrow! Hope I'll be able to post some useful info. :)

A new venture

2011-10-04T20:21:00.000-04:00

There's nothing here as of yet and probably won't be for a short little while. I'd like to get the blog customized to coordinate with my scrap blog first and get my thoughts organized on exactly what I want to offer here.

I just had an idea that I'd like to share some how-to information on creating certain things in PSP possibly including scrap element tutorials and maybe even vector drawing tutorials. So, it's a new venture that we'll see how it goes!