This tutorial was created by Mystic on June 25, 2007.
~~ Credits ~~
I would like to thank Jet for the little girl tube you can find her tubes here.
I would also like to thank La_Vere Hutchings for the use of his beautiful "Forgotten" image, you can find his paintings at Corbis and other art sites but you can not use them for monetary gain.
The corner piece came from anke-art you can find her blog here.
The images used to create the backgrounds are from Corbis Royalty Free Images, which you can find here. You have to join, but membership is free.
~~ Supplies ~~
Corel/Jasc Paint Shop Pro X here.
Download FM Tile Tool here.
Download Penta Filter VTR2 here.
I provided the Mezzoforce Ice 1.02 filter here.
Download the Supplies here.
Place your Filters in your filters folder.
Place the Font in your fonts folder.
Place the Tubes in your tubes folder.
I recieved a lot of e-mail asking just how do I do some of my backgrounds, so I decided to show you my main technique of creating a background. So lets get started with the tutorial.
1. Copy and paste as a new image the image below.
2. Go to Adjust/Blur/Gaussian Blur and set this to 30.
3. Now to Effects/penta.com/VTR2 and use the following settings.
4. Add a new layer.
5.Go to Selections/Select All.
6. Copy the image below. If you wish to colourize as in the sample at end of the tutorial, do so now. The reason we are using the lettuce picture is because the garlic picture just doesn't have enough colour and the end result was bland.
7. Right click on very top of your work area and select "Paste INTO Selection".
8. Go to Adjust/Blur/Gaussian Blur and use the same setting of 30.
9. On your layers palette lower the Opacity to 45.
10. Add a new layer.
11. Copy and paste as a new layer the image below. The reason for the darker flower is for texture and to darken up some of the colour for extra contrast.
12. Go to Effects/2mankenai/MezzoForce-Ice and set to the settings below.
13. Go to Effects/FM Tile Tools/Blend Emboss and set to the settings below.
14. Click on your selections tool and choose the Freehand Tool (lasso).
15. Select some of the right hand side as in the sample below (we are aiming to get rid of the orange orbs).
16. Once selected to to Selections/Modify/Feather and set this to 50.
17. Now hit your Delete Key twice and Deselect your selection (Selections/None).
18. On your layers palette change the Opacity to 26 and the Blend Mode to Luminance (Legacy).
19. Right click on the top of your work area and select "Copy Merged".
20. Paste as a new layer.
21. Go to Image/Resize and set to 90% a sample is provided below.
22. Go to Effects/3D Effects/Drop Shadow and apply the following settings.
23. Copy and paste as a new layer the image below.
24. With your Freehand Selection Tool, trace around the barn as in the sample below.
25. Go to Selections/Modify/Feather and use the same setting as previous which was 50.
26. Back to Selections/Invert.
27. Hit your Delete Key twice, you are getting rid of the straight edges of the image.
28. Deselect your selection (Selections/None).
29. Lets move this image up and to the left a little bit.
30. Go to Effects/FM Tile Tools/Blend Emboss and use the same settings previously used.
31. On your layers palette change the Opacity to 15 and the Blend Mode to Luminance (Legacy).
32. Copy and paste the image below.
33. With your Freehand Selection Tool select around the herd of sheep, sample below.
34. Go to Selections/Modify/Feather and use same setting .
35. Go to Selections/Invert.
36. Hit your Delete Key twice.
37. Deselect your selection.
38. Now we will move the sheep down and slightly to the right.
39. On your layers palette lower the Opacity to 14 and the Blend Mode to Luminance (Legacy).
40. Copy and paste the corner to upper left hand corner, you will probably have to zoom in to make sure the edges line up.
41. Duplicate this Layer.
42. Now to Image/Mirror.
43. Duplicate this Layer.
44. To Image/Flip.
45. Duplicate this Layer. The reason for the fourth corner is just in case some of you are using a different image and that corner may show.
46. Once again to Image/Mirror.
47. Copy and paste your little girl or tube of your choice.
48. Now this is a preference thing...you can leave her as she is or change the Blend Mode to Luminance (Legacy).
49. Add a new Layer.
50. Set your Background colour to #b7c2c8.
51. Click on your text tool and set up the options to these settings.
52. In all capital letters type Road.
53. Deselect your selection.
54. Go to Effects/3D Effects/Drop Shadow and give the following drop shadow.
55. On your Layers palette change the Blend Mode to Luminance (Legacy).
56. Add a new layer.
57. Click on your text tool. Change the font to Aurora Script and the size to 72.
58. Now type Country, with a capital c and the rest all lower case.
59. Deselect the selection.
60. Add the following Drop Shadow, change only the Opacity on your drop shadow box to 65. this will give the word country more depth than the roads word.
61. On your layers palette change the Blend Mode to Luminance (Legacy).
62. Add a new layer.
63. Set your font size to your liking for your name, I found between 48 and 55 for the size is good.
64. Effects/3D Effects/Drop Shadow and use the same settings.
65. On your layers palette change the Blend Mode to Luminance (Legacy)
66. On your layers Palette click on layer 4 (your dark flower layer).
67. Go to Effects/FM Tile Tool/Blend Emboss and use the same settings. We didn't do this at the beginning of the tutorial because there would be too much texture for the center images.
68. This is what I do with all my work to see if I like it and if the colours are pleasing to the eye. Go to View/Full Screen Preview to get out of this mode click your Escape Button.
69. Add your watermark.
70. Save your work.
I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and learned a little about using full images for background and textures.
This is the same tag but I colourized the lettuce background to Hue 0 and Saturation 0 and this will pick up the hint of gold from the garlic layer.
This sample I used a different image for the background and eliminated the lettuce background and then continued on with the tutorial.
Tutorial Index
All images used on the tags
are copyrighted to the various artists
Web Design and tags designs are
copyrighted to Mystic's Graphic Designs
