JWG PSP7 Tutorials:
Simple Background Tiles
Seamless Tiling
It is not difficult to create your own simple backgrounds using PSP7 and a free program called 20/20. (If you have PSP 8 or 9, you dont need to use 20/20, and Patti at Moon's Designs has written a helpful tutorial on seamless tiling in PSP 8/9). However, some people are still using PSP7, so much of this tutorial is for you.
Click here to download 20/20 now:
Creating your tile
First of all, open PSP and create a new image 300 by 300 pixels: 16 million colours: background white. Create a new layer by going to Layers: New Raster Layer, and click OK to the default settings. On this layer we are going to put our base background colour. You can either choose a plain colour from the color palette: or use one of the gradients, patterns or textures that come pre-installed in PSP.
If you are going to use a pattern or gradient, click on the little black arrow as shown in shot 3:
The above screenshots show you how to find your patterns, gradients and so on in PSP 7. Click on whichever style you want to use. Let us assume we have chosen gradient: Click where shown, and the gradient dialog box opens. You can change angles, number of repeats of pattern etc here. Experiment by clicking each box in turn, and moving the angle line around inside the box where the current gradient appears. Go on! It's fun and it is surprising the amount of pleasing effects you can randomly achieve :)
OK, now we are ready to pick the gradient we are going to use for our background.
Click on the little black arrow as shown in shot 8, and these boxes appear...
You can scroll up and down, until you find something that suits, and then click on it as shown. Change the angle, number of repeats or invert the gradient now, and then click OK. Click back on your new image, and click on the Flood Fill tool which is the litle icon that looks like a paint can on the left tool bar.
Right click in your image and it is filled with your gradient.
You may wish to reduce the layer opacity if the colour seems a bit too dark or bright. Open your layer palette and layer 1 will be selected. If you click where shown in shot 12, you can move the slider along from 100% opacity back to any other percentage that looks acceptable.
Now create another layer as before, and this is where we are going to place our text or image. If you are adding text, click on the Text Tool (the Capital A ), and the text entry dialog box opens:
Choose your font, size, colour etc.. (you have the same choice of gradients, patterns etc, as when you flood filled your background layer). If you want to put your text in the middle of your background on separate lines, click on centre align not left align which is the default setting. Use bold, italic, underline as desired, put a tick in the Auto Kern box, and check Floating and Anti Alias.
Click OK, and your text appears as a "Floating Selection". Add any image effects as desired, and then go to Selections, and click on Select None.
Check out my other tutorials on banners and fonts for more text ideas
To angle your text, click on Image: Rotate: and select the angle required. You will then end up with something like this:
Alternatively, you might like to use an image from your tubes folder to make something like this:
Instead of using the text tool, click on the Picture Tube icon, and choose a tube you like
You will probably have to resize it to fit into your image.
See my adding sparkles and exporting tubes tutorials for more information on Picture Tubes.
Now: save your image at this stage by naming it "whatevertile1" and save it in a "Bg_Tiles" folder so that you dont confuse your images to make into backgrounds, with the ones you have already converted to seamless tiles.
*Don't forget to Merge All Layers before saving* Layers: Merge: Merge All (Flatten):
Right; we are now ready to turn our image into a tiled background:
Tiled Backgrounds
There are two methods that you can use to convert to seamless tiled backgrounds using PSP 7
Method 1: 20/20
After saving as described above, open your 20/20 program, and click on File:Open Browse for your tile and open it. Click on Image on the toolbar as shown:
Then click on Seamless Tile: and then on Muted Background:
You will see these two buttons at the bottom of your tiled image:
The opacity slider is where you can make your background lighter if you want to be able to write directly on to it, or add images, buttons etc without the background being too busy, and overpowering your page. The preview window gives you a preview of how the background will appear on your page.If you click maximise in the preview window, you can see an entire page with your bg tiled. Very useful!! What you can do if you wish, is save two versions of the bg, one at full opacity to act as a border, and one with 40-50% opacity,(you decide which looks best) as a quieter bg.
Shot 27 shows a tiled bg at full opacity.
Shot 28 shows a tiled bg at 40% opacity.
If you want a smaller image to tile on your background, put a small picture or text in the middle of your canvas as described above, then, using the crop tool, draw a rectangle around your image, and go to Image:Crop.
Save this in the same way as the other images, and when you take it to 20/20 you will have a much more tiled result. A tile of 150 by 150 works rather well in 20/20, but you need the bigger image to be able to use Method 2..
Method 2: PSP 7
Click on your original image that you have saved as a tile in PSP, and click on the selection tool, on the left tool bar.
Make sure it is set at a rectangle with feather 0 and anti alias checked. Click just above at the top left of your image, and draw a rectangle around it:
Then go to Selections, and click on Convert to Seamless Pattern:
This should be the result:
You can now save your new seamless background, and close the original without saving changes.
The seamless tiles made in PSP 7 have larger images than those made in 20/20, but it depends on the effect that you wish to achieve which method is preferable. If you have PSP8 of course, you can make any type of seamless tiles as demonstrated here.
More Information
If you would like to make some textured and patterned backgrounds too, try the following excellent background tutorials:
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