Tuts and Other Necessities of Life

Doing tutorials is akin to telling a kid to pick up his toys. The first time, well, maybe he’ll get it, but if you repeat the concept a couple of times, a little more sinks in. (If nothing sinks in with a tut, hire a professional.)

From the beginning, I’ve done any tut three times, no matter how basic the material or which program. It’s amazing how often a little gem appears the third time. In terms of a new version of software, especially when it’s changed dramatically (such as going from PSP v.7 to v.8), it’s a good idea to start from step one, just like the rankest beginner. The first time, you do everything by rote. The “Aha!” kicks in the second time.

“Ah”, you say, “Where am I going to get time for that?” I have no idea, but luckily, experimenting with PSP is so addictive that you may find yourself playing instead of watching TV (assuming you’re enthused enough to get a copy for your home office, too).

This brings me to the next dilemma. The world of PSP is enormous. Kid in the candy store. “Oh, what a cool effect!” “But what can I use it for?” The obvious initial benefit is that it’ll trigger your imagination. Or make your eyes happy.

Sure, maybe I should spring for PSP X. However, I’ve been messing around with PSP since version 3 point something. When I upgraded to PSP 8 a couple of years ago, I ended up in matters other than computer graphics, so here I am with a virgin program in 2006. Not only that, but I’ve retired, so I get to play all I want now. Beats bingo.

My second reason for this approach is that I have a friend currently undergoing chemo and radiation. He needs a new obsession, and he’s showing interest over my shoulder in PSP. This one’s for you, Don! Toss your Mac and get real.

And You’re Off!

First stop: Paint Shop Pro Users Group. If you have a spare day and a half, you can explore. If you don’t find what you need on this site, Google it. (Free textures, free tubes, free fonts work for the Socially Secured like me.)

Become a member. It doesn’t cost anything, and there are lots of advantages without the hassle of spam and such. Become a member of the forum, too. And the BLOG. Knock yourself out.

So What to Do First

Self-learning Programme (SLP). Register first. Write down your user name and passwords, for Pete’s sake. Then look at the SLP Curriculum in the Forum.

PSPUG has many ways to learn PSP, and you can do an a la carte sampling, but the organized approach is a great concept. (If all else fails, read the instructions.) Read the curriculum.

Figure out what version of PSP you have. If you don’t have one, you can go to Jasc, which has become part of Corel, and download a trial version for a month. This is a brilliant marketing ploy because once you get hooked, you’ll be banging their door down to buy. By the way, PSP is also a lot less expensive than it’s Large Competitor.

Start with the October 2005 lesson. Look for the link. (Or click here.)

So, duh, the to-do list starts with introductions and basics. I tend to skip over this stuff, so I go back from time to time and see what I missed while I was yawning through it the first time. You’ll never remember everything in the introductory info until you start using it, just as you don’t know what you want to do with a clutch until you have a stick shift in your hand.

OK, Now What?

You worked through the tut. Turning a marigold into a gradient was fun. If you’re a newbie, pat yourself on the back and consider yourself brilliant for (1) having created a new gradient and (2) a nifty orangey pattern. Watch “American Idol” with a libation in hand.

However, if you’ve stuck your foot into this pool before, now the brain starts clicking. (This is a banner moment for a blonde!) I’d venture that most of the fun stuff folks have discovered in PSP was through tweaking.

Hmm. I did one more original gradient and then started using the most brilliant of the ones that come included with PSP. What if I used the Deformation Effects to gussy up the pattern? And then what if I buttonized it? Since this isn’t a tutorial, but a meander through the curriculum, you’re on your own, but here’s show-and-tell.

“Satin Backgrounds” by Barbara Townsend was my next step. It’s easy, fun, and gorgeous. It lets you mess with the Warp tool, so it’s not just a girley distraction for bored housewives. Pop a top and get in there.

I’m somewhat of a nut about backgrounds on the Web. If I have to put on sunglasses to look at one and have a hard time concentrating on content, I get underwhelmed in a hurry. Should I wait much longer than usual (which is a way of life with a dial-up connection) for a page to load, I skedaddle off elsewhere. Therefore, I’ve generally designed BGs on the “KISS” principal, i.e., less is best.

However, I did my stuff like a good girl, and should I ever start Web design for the rag trade, here’s my offering. Oscar de la Renta, take heed. (Or perhaps I can use it for a digital scrapbooking page. . .)

Challenges

“Bordered Image Backgrounds” by Kawliga caught me off guard. Here I am in v. 8, and the four challenge tuts were written for version 7. If you’re a beginner, don’t go messing around with tuts for other versions yet. Leave that for idiots with masochistic tendencies like me.

Back to the tut. After the florals and lace and all, I was not in the mood for a Victorian miss with a puppy. That’s where the adaptability of self-learning comes in.

Remember that you can use your own photos and clip art with tutorials. Not that I don’t enjoy/own frills and frippery. However, the reason I muddled through with this tut was that I didn’t want to search for a graphic that would let me learn all the goodies in the instructions in the same way. “It’s not the journey, but the destination that matters.”

(I didn’t put the left border I did here because it looks much like the one in the tut. However, I really did it. What I didn’t do was the suggested other tutorial on masks. My befuddled mind realized that PSP had changed the way masks are handled in version 8. I actually got to bed by 2 a.m.)

“Backgrounds – Left Border” and “Top Border Backgrounds” by Kawliga are both excellent, two feet on the ground instructions for people of almost any PSP version persuasion. Go through them carefully because if you’re going to do Web pages, you can’t get by without this knowledge.

Still, a little side quibble. I know that Web readers’ resolution is increasing by the minute. However, I for one have trouble with a screen in high resolution if it careens all over in panorama mode, whereupon I end up making the window narrower to be able to read it.

If you want to do wide pages, at least throw in some columns. Then you can have top borders as wide as the West. Please, oh, please, don’t design text blocks that the viewer can’t make narrower.

“Backgrounds – Negative Effects” was fun. If you have a chance, check out the various filters for PSP. Lots of them are free, the operative word on this PC.

Instead of using a symmetrical graphic, I went back to an earlier tut for this curriculum and used the result.

This is also a version 7 tut, and I’ll bet you can learn a lot looking for where things are. If you run into a stone wall, check with PSPUG. Chances are someone has already asked the same question. Recently I put a message in the PSPUG Forum saying I’d mislaid the knowledge of how to make a color graphic black and white. They replied within hours, bless their hearts.

So I made my image black and white and then went back to the tutorial. At the end, instead of making a pipe the was Kawliga told me to, I did my own, too, using a gradient on the full 10 pixels that I made on the fly with the Dropper tool from the colors in the positive and negative graphics. Both have a narrow drop shadow to the right, too.

All this sounds confusing, taken out of context. Go check out the actual tutorial, please. Remember that the ultimate self-learning exam is accomplishing what you need PSP to do – and of course, putting your imagination into high gear.

That’s it for Month 1 (curriculum of October 2005). Since I had used PSP before version 8, it didn’t take a long time, even with writing this Web content, uploading, and all that. However, there were a couple of tuts that I did twice, just to make sure.