Making User Bars in PSP

Paint Shop Pro Image Tutorials | Submited Dec 13, 2007

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Making User Bars

We are going to make this
Remember to continually save as you go along.

1. Open up a brand new image - these settings.


2. You now have a plain image like this.


3. On your materials palette left click either the "background" or "foreground" colour square to bring up the full material properties section .

4. Click on the section marked "Gradient" and choose a color of your choice and click ok.

5. Click on and fill your new image with the gradient color of your choice. Remember you can adjust the blend mode, opacity of the color etc by changing this section
You can see that I have reduced the opacity of my color fill by 57%.

6. This is what my image looks like now



We are now going to make the scanlines.

7. Open a new image using these settings.


8. Zoom in so that you can see what you are doing - I've zoomed in by 5000%

9. Click on and use these settings


10. Click on on your material palette set your background color to BLACK.

11. Carefully left click the paintbrush so that you paint a diagonal line going from one corner to the other. You should have something like this.
[note I have magnified this image so that you can see it here].

[If you want, you can now save this image as a .pspimage and add it to your psp patterns folder. In older versions of PSP (6-9 definitely) this is found c:/program files/jasc software/paint shop pro/patterns. In version x2 this is found (at least on my pc) c:/my documents/my psp files/patterns].

12. Go back to your new "userbar" image and add a new raster layer ... Layers > New Raster Layer
click OK.

You now have two layers - one called background and one called raster 1.


13. Click on and fill "raster 1" layer with the scan line pattern you've just made - found in the material properties under patterns.


14. Image now looks like this


15. To get rid of the white, set the layer blend mode to multiply
. If you think the black scan lines are a little dark, you can adjust the opacity by sliding the opacity bar up/down. I've adjusted mine to a setting of 51.


16. Merge the two layers ... Layers > Merge > Merge (all flatten).


17. Now you can add a picture of your choice - I'm going to the add the skem logo.
- by ... copy (ctrl-c) > paste as new selection (ctrl-E) > place anywhere in your image and rotate the image if you wish - until you have the desired effect.

18. Defloat (secure) the image by ... ctrl-D.

This is what I have so far
Adding the text. The best font to use is a pixel font - I have used 5x5 square which you can download from DaFont (http://www.dafont.com/search.php?psize=m&q=5x5square)

19. To your image add a new raster layer ... Layers > New Raster Layer.

20. Making sure that this layer is active click on click inside your image and you will get a text entry box come up. Now change your font settings - these are the settings I have used - type your text.

21. Move your text to where you want it and using keyboard ... Ctrl-Shift-F (this defloats the text but without removing the moving marquee effect which is important).

22. Now add another new raster layer ... Layers > New Raster Layer.

23. We are going to add a black outline to the text so do this ... Selections > Modify > Expand


in the popup menu choose these settings
click OK.

24. Click on and fill all the selected text area with black. Your image should now look like this and your layer tools like this

25. On the layer tools you now need to drag the layer named "raster 2" down so that it is moved below the layer named "raster 1". Layer section should now look like this

26. Merge all the layers ... Layers > Merge > Merge (all flatten) and then defloat (secure) the text by ... Ctrl-D. Your image should now look something like this

Now for the finishing touches.

27. To add a highlight add a new Vector layer ... Layers > New vector layer.

This next part is tricky, and where the shape tool is depends on the version of PSP you are using. We need to draw an eclipse shape on part of the new layer. Make sure that background color on your material palette is set to the color of your choice, i.e. I'm using white.

28. Click on the eclipse shape ... in PSP X2 it looks like this - zoom into your image (its easier) left click halfway down your image once and drag the mouse upwards from left to right ... image will look something like this

29. When you have the size take finger of the left button. You will now have an image that looks something like this .

30. On the layer tools simply mess around with the blend mode and the opacity mode until you have the desired effect. These are the settings I used : Opacity = 30 / Blend Mode = Screen
.

31. Merge layers ... Layers > Merge > Merge (all flatten).

32. Now to add the final touch add a black border ... Ctrl-A > Selections > Modify > Select Selection Borders


these settings


click OK.

33. Click on and fill with color of your choice - I'm using pink to match my skem lizard. Then defloat ... Ctrl-D.

34. SAVE IT.

That's it - here is my finished userbar.