How
To Make A Sky and Grass
I've been emailed numerous
times from people asking how I made my sky or grass.
I don't really do it
the same way every time, so it's a bit of a hit and miss sorta thing.
Since we're coming into
fall right now, I thought I'd write this simple tutorial on a fall
or Hallowe'en sky and
grass that is no longer "spring" green. This is a very simple tute.
For this tutorial, you will need the Mura's Filter Meister - Cloud filter - Download Here
Unzip the cloud filter
into your C:/Program Files/JascSoftware/PaintShopPro/Plugins folder
If you don't have a plugin
folder within your PSP, create one now. I find it is a good idea
to make a new folder
for each filter, and name it appropriately. Makes things much easier.
You will also need the
PSP lawn tube - Download
Here
Unzip the lawn tube to
your Paint Shop Pro/Tubes folder
The
Sky
Let's begin with a stormy
looking sky. Open an image 400x400, tranparent.
Flood fill with colour
#78A4B8. Go to Effects>Plugin Filters>MuRa's Meister>Cloud
You will get a screen
that looks like the one below. If you'll recall above, I said
this was rather hit and
miss. What I meant by that can be demonstrated below,
by using different colours
to acheive your sky effect. The colours I used were
Light - ##FFFFFF
FG - #78A4B8
BG - #FFFFFF
Click okay when you choose
the colours that suit your needs (you'll need to experiement).
Then click ok.
Your image will look like the one on the left of the screen cap below.
The Grass
Now we want to add some grass to our image, as we might want to make a fall or Hallowe'en scene.
Add a new layer
to your sky image. With your selection tool set to rectangle, select
the bottom part of your image.
You will select as much
or as little of your image as you like, depending upon how much grass you
want.
As a guideline, I generally
select about a third of the image...or a bit more. I've outlined
in red below
Next grab your Tube tool,
leave the settings at their default. (Size 100/Scale 200)
Click inside your marching
ants until you have filled the entire area. You image
will now look like this
(only bigger, of course)
Now when I got the idea
for this tutorial, I was making a fall picture. The grass was just
too green
So what I did to change
it to more "fall" looking grass, was:
Go to Colors>Adjust>Color
Balance. Use the settings below
These settings just "brown"
up your grass a bit for a more fall look.
Your image will now look like this and it's ready to add whatever you like.
When I was finished adding
my tubes, etc, my whole pic looked like this: As you can see,
my sky below has a bit
more dark in it than the images above. That is because I played around
with the grey colour
in MuRa cloud until I got it a bit darker. And that's it!
This tutorial may not be reproduced
in any way. All images the property of Jade
Designs ©1998-2003.
If you wish to use this tutorial
in an e-group setting, please Email
me for permission first. You may
however, provide a text link
to this page from your web page, without permission.