Supplies
No scraps for this one :)
Tube of choice – Artwork used in this tutorial is ©Karina Dale, http://www.karinadale.com. To use her work, you must first obtain a license from AMI, http://artisticmindsinc.com/
Brushes of choice
Filters – Mura’s Filter Meister: Copies (Free) (optional)
Eye Candy 5 Impact (PTU) OR Eye Candy 3.1 (Free) (optional)
Font of choice – I used “Black Adder”
All links and supplies shared with permission.
You will need a good working knowledge of PSP to complete this tutorial. This tutorial was written using version X2.
Let's Go!
Open a new canvas – 600 x 250, transparent.
Open your tube. Set your foreground and background colors to 2 complimentary colors from your tube.
On your canvas, flood fill with one of your colors (I used black).
Add a new raster layer.
On this new raster layer, apply your brush of choice, using the other color (I used red).
Now, you can either apply your brush randomly or you can apply it once, and then use Mura’s Meister: Copies, using one of the tiling presets.
Merge your brush layer down onto your flood filled layer.
Now, use your selection tool. Choose “Rounded Rectangle” as your selection type.
On your canvas, draw out a large rounded rectangle, selecting most of your canvas. (About 200x500)
Now, choose Selections>Invert (CTRL+Shift+I), and hit delete. Selections>Select None (CTRL+D). Save.
Move your rounded rectangle to the center of your canvas.
Optional – Apply Eye Candy Gradient Glow – I used an inside glow w/ a radius of 5, color black. Save.
Apply a drop shadow – I used 0, 0, 100, 15, black.
Go to your tube. Copy and paste it onto your canvas.
Go back to your tube and resize it to a height of 250 pixels. Copy and paste it onto your canvas.
Back on your canvas – the smaller tube – apply a drop shadow (I used 0, 5, 65, 5, black) and then move it to the far left or right of your canvas. Save.
On the opposite side of your canvas – use your preset shape tool to draw out a small circle – stroke color- none, fill color – I used black.
Objects>Align>Vertical Center in Canvas. Convert to raster layer.
Activate your large tube layer, Image>Mirror.
Arrange your large tube so that the face of the tube (or whatever part LOL) is over the circle.
Go back to your circle layer – Selections>Select All, Float, Defloat (CTRL+A, CTRL+F, CTRL+Shift+F)
Selections>Invert (CTRL+Shift+I), hit delete on the large tube layer. Selections>Select None (CTRL+D).
If you want, you can change the blend mode of your large tube layer – I used Luminance.
Merge your large tube layer down onto the circle layer. Apply an inside gradient glow, in the opposite color of your circle, width 10. Save.
Apply a drop shadow to your circle layer – I used 0, 0, 100, 15, black.
Still on your circle layer, copy and paste as a new image – this will be your avatar J Resize it so that the longest side is only 150 pixels.
Now, add your copyright info to both your tag and your avatar.
Add your name to both, save them as .png files, and you are done – quick and easy!
I would love to see your results! Email them to tutsbyj0eswife@gmail.com
This tutorial was created on May 24, 2009. Tutorial is © tutsbyj0eswife and is registered with
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An alternate version
For this version, instead of doing the large tube inside a circle, I greyscaled it, changed the blend mode to luminance, and then deleted any of it that was outside of my rectangle. I then merged it down, and added the inside glow to the rectangle. For the avatar, I cropped out a 150x150 square, and added an inside glow.
