Gifts For You - Goodies - Tutorial  
Angular shading using the cut out tool in PSP

Using one of my templates we are going to use the cut out tool in Paint Shop Pro to do basic angular shading.

I am using Paint Shop Pro 10.01. Your interface may look different but the instructions will remain the same for most previous versions.

Right click to save these three images to your desktop for reference.

A.    B.   C.

Image A is the blank template you will be working with.

 Image B is what our result will be for this tutorial. Image C is for later.

1. Open image A in your program.

2. Increase the color depth to 16 million colors or RGB 8 bits channel as shown below:

3. Use your flood fill tool to fill the ornament with a color. I have chosen hex color red  #961718.

It will look like this at 100%. It is colored flat and we will now begin to shade it.

 

4. Select your magic wand:

Once selected the mode values at the top of your program screen and other details should look like this:

Make sure you have Anti-alias unchecked. Don't forget to turn it back on later when working with fonts. :)

After you have confirmed the above matches your magic wand settings, zoom in on the ornament.

5. Click your magic wand inside colored ball of the ornament template. It will look like this with the marching ants:

 

6. Next go to your effects menu and select 3D Effects and Cutout from the submenu:

The cutout menu will show offsets, attributes and colors for shading.

7. I have selected to fill the interior with the same hex color as previously which is #961718. Use the eyedropper tool to do this.

---!!!--- Make sure that the fill interior box is checked!

8. I have selected Shadow color (box on the left) to be a slightly darker red than my original hex color using #7c0f10.

9. After you have done this using the offset and attributes settings above, click OK.

10. Select your magic wand tool again and right click inside of the ball of the ornament  to disable the marching ants now.

At 100% zoom the ornament now looks like this:

 

You can shade the top part of the ornament using a gradient, where the lightest part will end up being on the right, since that is where the "light source" is coming from in the graphic.

I have used the "Metal Steel" gradient turned at 90 degrees with the light-to-dark style for this ornament.

   

Before and after:

My personal holiday banner made from the shading my ornament templates.

The shading is subtle but makes a difference so that the objects are not completely flat:

Click the image to see an example of it on one of my pages. (Opens in new window)

Now use the same exact settings  and colors as you did for the ornament to see the effect it has on the template below:

  Right click to save. Color and cut out. Now make offset adjustments to get the lighting correctly shaped to fit this object. It does shading to the shape of the object you're using cutout on! Isn't that cool?!?!?

If you are doing this part of the tutorial with the vase  image above on the left and you are having trouble figuring out what the correct settings are to adjust the lighting for the vase, hold your mouse over the question mark when/ if you give up, but try on your own first before looking at the answer!

 Offset: Vertical -2, Horizontal +5

Did you get it? Below is an explanation of how exactly the lighting offsets work, using the ornament ball again:

Once you have completed the ornament tutorial successfully the most important part of learning how to use the cutout tool is below:

Go back to step 3 where you colored in your ornament and it is a flat color.

When you have gotten to the point where you are using the cutout tool again at step 5:

Set your Offsets (vertical and horizontal) to zero. Continue to use the same hex colors to fill your interior and use as your shadowas you did before. Now turn up both offsets to 10 vertical and 10 horizontal as shown below.

I have highlighted the "After" box on the right for you so that you can see what the offsets do.

Manipulate the offsets so that the shadow has the lighting coming from the direction you desireas well as the ambience you wish to have on your object. You can go negative and positive.

I highly suggest trying to get your lighting settings correct by first setting one of the offsets to zero, for example, set vertical to zero and increase horizontal one number at a time up to 14.

You will see which direction the lighting will go. Now try setting horizontal to -14 (negative) and see how the lighting direction changes. Do the same with vertical now. Set horizontal to zero.

Play around with the offset settings and you will have fun making shadows and lighting for different objects that you create!

Image C up at the top was done by using Fill interior with color white and shadow color light gray.

Most often this setting is used when making lighting effects with hollow objects such as snow globes and bubbles.

Repeating the process on the same image several times with different offsets, attributes, opacities and shadow colors you can create some pretty amazing lighting effects on hollow objects, and of course, shading effects on objects such as the ornament to create depth of field and a more three dimensional look.   =]

There are more advanced things you can do with your cut out tool, such as making globes and bubbles. The imaging  for those types of objects is more complex which will hopefully be in another upcoming tutorial soon.

Thank you for visiting my page. You can find more of my templates at my website in the "For You" section. (Goodies/Pixel Props)

I have a few pieces of line art that you can work with and some examples of completed and colored templates.

It is my pleasure to share them with you. Please if you use any of my templates on your website link back or credit this site as the origin for the props.

 

--Heaven Conquistadore - iLoveHeaven.com 2005

Please take the time to vote for my website. Please? :)

 

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