Tutorial recommendations, please

[Belle]

I am interested in becoming proficient in graphic design using PSP x8. I've watched countless free tutorials, but they only take me so far. I'd like to be able to (one day) create something like the attached. It was supposed to be a PSP free tutorial, but is now defunct. Does anyone offer classes that you could recommend?

Thank you!

[brucet]

I can't direct you to any specific tutorials as such. But my advice would be to find/look for relevant Photoshop tutorials. Much of what Photoshop can do PSP can do. Here's a link that will help. (It's old but still much of it still works). http://video-books.net/paintshoppro/tut ... ionary.htm

Apart from that just playing and discovering what each feature will do helps a lot.

regards

[Belle]

Brucet - thank you. I've been googling PSP tutorials and finding a few gold mines.

I have another question that perhaps you can help me with. I can't get new plugins to show up in "effects" menu. I have them filed in C:\Program Files\Corel\Corel PaintShop Pro X8 (64-bit)\PlugIns and C:\Users\Karen\Documents\Corel PaintShop Pro X8 files\Plug-ins. Both of these are listed in the 'plugins' file folder locations in PSP. Still, they don't show up and for the life of me, I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I somehow managed to get Flaming Pear and Particle Shop working, so I know it's possible. Any clue you could spare is greatly appreciated!

[brucet]

OK re plugins. I do things a bit different from some of the other advice you may get.
I direct PSP to the file locations that are the default installation locations. (I use the plugins in more than one editor so it saves me having them in multiple locations).
ie, I have Topaz DeNoise installed. It resides under /Programs Files/Topaz Labs.
In PSPx8 I go to File/Preferences/File Locations.
Click on Add. Simply go to Program Files and click on the root file for your plugin. In my case Program File/Topaz Labs. Click OK. This action will pick up all the Topaz Lab plugins.

Hope that helps.

regards

[Kathy_9]

Belle - are you using the 32-bit or 64-bit version of PSP?

A number of older plug-ins only work in the 32-bit version so if you are running the 64-bit version that could be your issue. My computer is 64-bit but I use the 32-bit version of PSP so I can use all my plug-ins and not just the 64-bit plug-ins.

[Belle]

Brucet and Kathy_9, thank you for your help. Kathy, you were right about the 32/64 difference. The plugins show up in the 32 version...after I moved them to a new folder.

So, onward...

[Belle]

For anyone on the same learning curve as I am, just wanted to say that there are some great tutorials for Paint Shop Pro out there. However, be careful because some of them are several years old and refer to older versions of PSP. They also refer to plugins and masks without saying where they got them. As mentioned earlier, even when plugins are given, they don't necessarily all work, so I could go only so far with the tutorials. One of them isn't even given in English. Thankfully, the screen shots are of an English PSP software, so I managed pretty well.

Even though I can't follow all of the instructions, there is so much great information on how the tools can be used that it's worth the time going through them.

One of them referred to a "diamond" plugin, which skewed the graphic 45°. I've looked high and low and can't find one. I resorted to rotating the graphic manually, but is there a plugin like this out there that anyone knows of?

Thanks!

[JoeB]

Even though I can't follow all of the instructions, there is so much great information on how the tools can be used that it's worth the time going through them.

One of them referred to a "diamond" plugin, which skewed the graphic 45°. I've looked high and low and can't find one. I resorted to rotating the graphic manually, but is there a plugin like this out there that anyone knows of?

I'm not sure what you mean by "skewed the graphic 45 degrees". If (as implied by your later comment that you rotate manually) it simply means that the plugin only rotates the image then you really don't need it. Just use the Rotate menu option and put 45 in the degree of rotation box, or any other rotation degree you need. However, keep in mind that rotating raster (as opposed to vector) images at angles other than right angles (90, 180,270,360) will cause some image degradation in the form of loss of sharpness.

On the other hand, I suspect that the plugin you are referring to actually does more than simply do a 45 degree rotation because I can't imagine someone creating a plugin for just rotating something by 45 degrees.

[Belle]

Hey, Joe. Below is an image of what the "diamond" plug in does. It rotates the rectangular image and tiles it on the diagonal. (Not sure if I'm saying that correctly.) You're right. I used the rotating tool and then copy and pasted it to get the corners filled in as well. A plug in would have made it much simpler.






Edited to add that below is what I finally came up with. You can see the diagonal pattern for the background.

[JoeB]

Hey, Joe. Below is an image of what the "diamond" plug in does. It rotates the rectangular image and tiles it on the diagonal. (Not sure if I'm saying that correctly.) You're right. I used the rotating tool and then copy and pasted it to get the corners filled in as well. A plug in would have made it much simpler.

If you just want to rotate a lot of things by only 45 degrees then you can do that in one step by recording a script that will do that. I'm not sure how a plugin would be much simpler than using the rotate tool. With a plugin you have to click Effects, then Plugins, scroll to the proper plugin and then click on it. With the rotate tool you click on Image, then Free Rotate, and click radio button for the rotation direction and enter the degrees (45 in your case).

After seeing the image you posted I'm wondering if this Diamond plugin you mentioned might be a plugin to create seamless tiles.

And now that I see the additional image you posted it appears you're not just wanting to rotate an image 45 degrees but actually create a diamond shape with 4 sides. If you have a square shape and rotate 45 degrees it will work. But if you want to create a diamond that does not have 90 degree angles at all 4 angles then that's a different story because the length of the sides won't be equal.

[Belle]

Seamless tiles - that's right! There were so many steps and instructions in the tutorial, I forgot to mention that part. You must be brilliant at this!

[Kathy_9]

Maybe this will help you. http://www.redfieldplugins.com/filterSe ... rkshop.htm

There is also a seamless tile function in PSP. View - > Toolbars ->Web

[JoeB]

Seamless tiles - that's right! There were so many steps and instructions in the tutorial, I forgot to mention that part. You must be brilliant at this!

I wish!

[Belle]

Thank you, Kathy!