The Effects Menu Artistic Effects Paint Shop Pro 7 has a ton of Artistic Effects, most of which are pretty useless by themselves but when you combine them with other effects, you can create some pretty cool graphics. I won't go into detail on many of them because you can experiment with the effects to see what they do. I will, though, share some really cool things I have discovered as far as using the effects. I will use the following graphic to illustrate some of the artistic effects. Aged Newspaper This filter ages your image by applying brown tones and washing out prominent colors. The effect is more realistic if you convert your graphic to greyscale the increase colors back to 16 million before applying the filter. This removes all the color so the resultant image has more of an old newspaper feel to it. Black Pencil This filter will take a color image and convert it into a black-and-white image that looks like it has been drawn using a black pencil. This filter works best on images that have clearly delineated lines. Images with lots of detail (like a photograph) will end up looking like a lot of black lines with little recognizable detail. Brush Strokes This filter simulates paint brush strokes on your image. It defines colors in the image and then delineates the edges with brush strokes. I have not had a lot of success with this filter. I feel it has a tendency to distort the underlying image to a degree that makes it pretty much unrecognizable. Charcoal This filter works a lot like the Black Pencil filter except that it does not convert the image to black and white. The result is a color image with the edges emphasized as though they were sketched with charcoal, then the colors filled in later. Chrome This filter gives a metallic effect to an image. Colored Chalk This filter finds the edges in an image, removes the color from inside the edges and colors the edges various "chalk" colors. Colored Foil This filter adds a sculpted look to the edges and applies multiple colors to the image. Colored Pencil This filter works exactly like Colored Chalk except that the lines are a little sharper. Contours This filter can turn your image into a topographical map. It finds the edges, lines them with black and then flattens the remaining colors in the image. Enamel This filter creates an effect that looks like image has been shined and molded. Glowing Edges This filter works like Colored Chalk except that it fills the inner colors with black and gives the edge colors a "neon" type of effect. This filter can create some pretty cool images. Hot Wax Coating This filter finds the edges of an image and makes them look like a wax buildup. The filter uses the foreground stroke color as the color of the "wax". If you don't want to discolor your image, set the foreground color to white. The following graphic demonstrates hot wax. Pencil This filter works the same as Glowing Edges except that the outlined edges are more like pencil strokes than an glow. Sepia This filter works exactly like Aged Newspaper. Topography This filter finds the edges of your image and creates an effect that looks like a system of terraces Geometric Effects The Geometric Effects allow you to distort an image in interesting ways. I won't cover every effect here since a demonstration speaks much louder than words. Open a graphic and make a selection. Then apply the various geometric effects. You will then see how they work. Following are some useful hints on using some of the Geometric Effects: Circle The Circle effect will take an image and distort it into a sphere shape. If you promote the background layer to a transparent layer before applying the circle effect, you will end up with a circle on a transparent background. The circle effect leaves the edges of the image rather jagged. To clean up the jagged edges, use the selection tool to create an antialiased circle slightly smaller than the circle image, invert the selection and hit delete. Perspective Horizontal This effect can be quite useful in creating objects of a particular shape. Perspective Vertical works the same way, but it ends up with ragged edges. I always use Perspective Horizontal. You can also use it to create a sparkle tube as illustrated in the tutorial below. First, some interesting shapes. Teardrop Shape - or Flower Petal Open a new white graphic 100x100 pixels. Add a new layer. On the new layer, draw a circle starting in the middle of the graphic. Flood fill with a color. Apply the Perspective - Horizontal Geometric effect with Percent Difference set to 100. You should now have a graphic that looks like the following: Sparkle Tube Open a new black graphic 250x250 pixels. Turn on the gridlines and set to white. Add a new layer and draw a circle starting at 125,125 200 pixels in size (you will stop before the last set of gridlines). Turn off gridlines and flood fill your selection with white. Deselect. Apply the Perspective - Horizontal Geometric effect with Percent Difference set to 100. Choose Image>Mirror. Apply the Perspective - Horizontal Geometric effect with the same settings twice. Choose Image>Mirror. Apply the Perspective - Horizontal Geometric effect with the same settings twice. Choose Image>Mirror. Apply the Perspective - Horizontal Geometric effect one last time. Right click on the deformed image layer and choose "Duplicate" 2 times (you now have three layers with the deformed image on them. Go to the first duplicate and choose Image>Rotate>90 degrees to the right with All Layers unchecked. Go to the top duplicated layer and choose Image>Resize>70% with Resize all Layers unchecked. Duplicate this layer. On the first layer you resized, rotate the graphic 45 degrees to the right (enter 45 in the free box). Rotate the top duplicated layer 45 degrees to the left. Add a new layer and work on the new layer. Switch to the Air Brush tool with the foreground color set to white. Set the airbrush tool to Size 100; Hardness 50; Opacity 25; Density 100. Place the airbrush nozzle in the center of the sparkle and press the mouse twice. Delete the background layer. Choose Layers>Merge>Merge Visible. Choose File>Export>Picture Tube. Leave all the settings at their default and name your tube "Sparkle". The following graphic represents the sparkle tube created by the above tutorial applied to a 100x100 pixel black graphic at 50%. Variation: You can make different colored sparkles by colorizing your white sparkle. To do this, go to the color picker and choose a color for your sparkle. Note the Hue number for the color. Choose Colors>Colorize and enter your color number in the Hue box and set Saturation to about 200. Illumination Sunburst The Sunburst effect works only on a background layer. There are several presets to this effect. My main complaint is that there is no way to size the effect. It works across the entire graphic and cannot be constrained to part of the graphic. Experiment with this effect to see if you feel it is useful. Lights The Lights effect also comes with several presets. The best way to learn to use the lights is to apply the presets and observe how they effect the graphic. Then you can start experimenting with your own lights. If you find a light setting you really like, save the setting by clicking on the Save As button. Reflection Feedback Feedback takes the graphic, creates copies, then inserts the copies into the graphic at reduced sizes. I haven't found any real use for this effect. Kaleidoscope Kaleidoscope, on the other hand, is a lot of fun and can create some pretty neat background graphics. Any graphic you create with this effect will be tilable. Open a colorful graphic and experiment! Pattern Pattern also creates tilable graphics. Experiment with the effect on a colorful graphic. You can come up with some very nice background tiles using this effect. Rotating Mirror Rotating Mirror can also be a very interesting effect and lends it's self to experimentation. Texture Effects Texture Effects are very useful for creating artistic touches on graphics. But, many of the effects seriously effect the colors of the graphic. While experimenting, try duplicating the graphic layer. Apply the effect to the bottom layer (turn off the top layer to see the effect). Then turn the top layer back on and use the Layer Blend mode set to Overlay, Screen or Multiply. This will preserve some of the colors in your graphic. Blinds A good use for the Blinds effect is to create instant "scanlines" on a graphic. Set the Blinds to Width 1-2; Opacity 50-100; Color Black; Horizontal and Light from left/top checked. The Blinds effect can also be used to create drapes (see Drape your Page). The results won't be as good, but you can do it without an external filter. Emboss Emboss turns the entire graphic a gray color. This is one filter that benefits by duplicating the graphic layer and then setting the top graphic layer to Overlay. Fine Leather Fine Leather can be used to create a leather pattern background. Open a new white graphic 256x256 pixels. Apply the Fine Leather Effect (I used Custom 2). Add a new layer and flood fill with a leather color (I used #4B2D1B). Set the Layer Blend Mode on the color layer to Hard Light. Choose Layers>Merge>Merge All (flatten). Set the Selection tool to Square with Antialias off and no Feather. Make a square selection on the graphic starting at 5,5 or so and ending the same distance from the edges. This will remove the slight bevel this effect applies to a graphic. Choose Image>Crop to Selection. Apply the Simple Half Wrap filter. You should now have a seamless leather background tile similar to the following (created starting with a 128x128 graphic). Fur I haven't found any real use for the Fur effect other than applying it before you apply the Kaleidoscope effect. That can result in some very unusual background tiles. Mosaic Antique I haven't found much use for this effect other than in conjunction with other effects. I'll cover some of them in my Effects tutorials. Mosaic Glass This effect distorts a graphic so that it looks like you are looking through glass blocks. Polished Stone This effect follows the contours of the graphic and smoothes them out to look like polished stone. Rough Leather This effect follows the contours of the graphic and gives the edges a beveled effect. Kind of a combination of Emboss and Fine Leather. Sandstone This effect follows the contours of the graphic and gives it a rough sandstone effect. Sculpture This effect hasn't changed from PSP 6. Please see my Sculpture tutorial for the use of this effect. Soft Plastic This effect follows the contours of the graphic and gives it a plastic effect. Straw-Wall This effect can be used to create a "stucco" seamless tile. Open a new white 110x110 graphic. Apply the Straw-Wall effect Custom 4. Apply Effects>Sharpen. Make a square selection 5 pixels inside the outer rim of the graphic and crop to selection. Apply the Half-Wrap filter referred to in the above Fine Leather tutorial. Colorize your stucco tile by adding a new layer, flood fill the layer and set a Layer Blend Mode. Texture This effect applies a texture to a graphic. Any seamless tile saved as a .bmp into the Textures folder can be used with this filter. But, keep in mind that if your bmp tile is not a true seamless tile, you will see significant distortion in the effect when it is applied to your graphic. If you use the Texture effect to create seamless tiles, keep in mind that the edges will be noticeable unless you crop them and then you might also need to apply the Half Wrap filter. Tiles You can create a "tile" effect in a triangular, square or hexagon shape with filter. Unfortunately the resultant tile is not seamless which renders this effect pretty useless, in my opinion. Weave I love this effect. It is pretty much the same filter as the Weave filter in Eye Candy. But, it does not result in a seamless tile so you will need to do some cropping to create a seamless tile. You can use this effect to create the "wire" effect that is so much the rage today. Following is a short tutorial for creating rusty wire. Open a new white graphic 300x300. Apply the Weave Effect set to Gap size 4; Width 1; Opacity 20; Weave and Gap color Black, Fill Gaps checked. Apply the effect again (Ctrl-Y). Add a new layer. Apply the Cloud tube set to a scale of 75 three times scattering over the graphic. Apply Effects>Artistic Effects>Sepia with Amount to Age set to 100. Apply Colors>Adjust>Curves and set the Input to 153 and Output to 97. Apply Effects>Texture Effects>Mosaic Antique set to Columns/Rows 50; Tile Opacity 25; Grout width 10; Grout Opacity 100 to the cloud layer. Apply Effects>Texture Effects>Fine Leather set to Custom 1. Set Cloud layer blend mode to Multiply. You should now have a graphic similar to the following except that it will be much larger and better defined.