Springtime Font Effect

Springtime Font Effect

This is written with beginners in mind who know how to use their workspace. I’ve learned from many awesome tutorial writers, and so some of what I’ve done may look familiar, however I’ve written this from scratch so any similarities are merely coincidence. I’ve made this with screenshots from version 9 however it can be done in any version 7 through X5 and uses no outside filters. The tut will cover layers, font effects, selections and uses several native filters in Paint Shop Pro.

Choose a tube you like – mine is a springtime theme, but I encourage you to use your own and will not provide any here. The ones I feature are tubed by Cher Switzer but I don’t have a current link for her at this time. The font I used is Carnival by Richard Mueller and can be found here and is free (I love free;O)

1. Create your image to be the size you prefer, but mine was 600 x 600. I filled with white background. Remember to save between steps;O)

2. I copied my tube image and pasted as a new layer into my image.

3. Choose your font in the tool ribbon at the top of your workspace (if you have left them default positions). With your font set to vector text size 100 I used CarnivalMF font on my image. I resized it to fit exactly as I wished and then I converted it to a raster layer. (Vector text will not loose clarity when you enlarge it so I resize before converting to a raster image that is not easily resized without image loss).

4. Duplicate your tubed image layer.

5. Go back to your text layer. Using the Magic Wand tool, select inside the text until all areas are selected.

6. Modify the selection, enlarge by 2 pixels. Add a layer and fill with your background color (mine was white). KEEP SELECTED.

7. Go back to duplicate tube layer. Invert the selection and delete. Move this layer on top of the text and background layers. Merge that layer down to the background layer. DESELECT (CTRL + D)

8. Go to text layer (should be under duplicate tube layer) and select inside text, float after all areas are selected. Change layer to tube duplicate layer. Use the following cutout:

DESELECT

9. Go back to the text layer and use this inner bevel setting:

10. On the original tube layer, lower the opacity to 50%.

11. Change the duplicate tube layer to whatever opacity you wish, mine is at 70%

12. Go to Text layer and use this drop shadow setting:

After that you will be on the shadow layer. Go to Adjust>Blur>Gaussian Blur with 2 and apply the blur. (Change to your preference if you prefer).

You are basically done. Use your crop tool to crop close if you plan to use as a tag. Hope you enjoyed this venture.

Written by LafnSuzie March 1, 2013