Jade's Hallowe'en Goodies Tutorial

This tutorial is long, but as it is my first attempt at tutorial writing, it
involves .sel files, and is very much a beginner tut. Those more advanced
with PSP may feel free to "decorate" their finished graphics any way they
wish. The tutorial was written using PSP 7 but will work with 6 as well.
If you have any problems with the tut, please Email me.

Remember to Save Your Work Often!!

Let's get started!!
First off, you'll need to download Paint Shop Pro, if you don't have it.
You can get a fully functional, 30 Day Free Trial Version from Jasc

Our first Hallowe'en "goodie" is The Grim Reaper.
He has been downsized here for quicker page loading.

Click to download the .sel files for the tutorials
If you do not already have a Selections folder in your
PSP directory, create one now, and unzip the .sel
files into it. Since I do a lot of tutorials, I usually create
sub-folders in my Selections folder to avoid confusion.
(This is for those of us who are easily confused! *S*)

The .sel files for all the "goodies" in this tutorial are in
the one zip file. The psp file for the jack-o-lantern's
face is also included in the zip, so you will need to
take it out of that folder, open it in PSP and minimize.

You will need this wood fill for the pole, and the
marble fill for later on in the tutorial.
Just right-click on each and save them to your computer.

GRIM REAPER

Step 1:Open a new image 500x500, transparent/16million colors.
This is large, but we'll fix that later on! Also open your wood and
marble images in PSP and just minimize them for later use.

Add a new layer and name it blade. Go to Selections/Load From Disk
and load the reaper 1.sel file. Flood fill with grey. I used #C0C0C0.
Apply an inner bevel using the following settings. Deselect.

Alternately, you may flood fill with white and apply a Silver/Grey
metallic Blade Pro preset if you have BP on your computer. If
you use Blade Pro, you will not need to apply the inner bevel.
Here's what the blade looks like using an Antique Silver preset.

Step 2: Add another layer, name it reaper. Go to Selections/Load
from Disk and load the reaper2.sel file. Floodfill with black (or a
color of your choice) Apply the same inner bevel settings as above,
then deselect image.

Step 3: Add yet another layer, name it pole. Go to Selections/Load
from Disk and load the reaper3.sel file. Set your foreground to the
pattern option, and choose the wood fill you have minimized.

Flood fill the pole with your wood fill and apply the same inner
bevel as before. Deselect.

Next, go to Layers/Merge Visible. With your Magic Wand, click
anywhere within your graphic, then go to Selections/Invert.
Go to Edit/Copy, then Paste as a new Image. This gets
rid of all the excess background that we don't need!
At this time, you can either tube your image by going to
File/Export/Picture Tube. Name your graphic and click
OK. Your graphic will be saved to your PSP tubes folder
by default. Alternately, you can save as a transparent .gif
by going to File/Export/Gif Optimizer. You will need to "play"
with your settings to get the results you want.

That's it for this part!

On To Our Next Hallowe'en "Goodie"!

Email