on the Tools toolbar. Click the arrow beside the picture in Tool Options and select Star 1. You may have to scroll up or down to find it depending on how many shapes you have. This lesson will cover how to use Preset shapes.
Preset shapes are fun and easy to use. We will create a few things using some of the shapes that comes with PSP 8. If you have the download version of PSP 8 you might want to click Help || Jasc Software Online || Resources and Components and download the Resource packs.
Create a New canvas. (Click File|| New [Ctrl+N])
Width = 300 pixels
Height = 300 pixels
Resolution = 72.00 pixels
Background = Raster
Color Depth = 16 Million Colors (24 Bit)
Color = Transparent Checked
Click the Preset Shapes tool on the Tools toolbar. Click the arrow beside the picture in Tool Options and select Star 1. You may have to scroll up or down to find it depending on how many shapes you have.
Make sure there is not a check in front of Retain Style and Create as Vector. Retain Style will keep all the settings and materials for the Preset shape. Normally I choose to Create as Vector because of all the options available. The options for Vector shapes is the same options I covered in the Text lesson (last lesson). However for the sake of simplicity will we create a raster shape instead.
Line Style should be Solid and width determines the size of the outline around the shape (just like with Text). I have my width set to 1.
In the materials palette set the foreground to the color, gradient, or pattern you want to use for the outline. Set the background to a color, gradient, or pattern that you want to fill the shape with. If you don't want an outline set your Foreground to null or if you don't want to fill your shape set your Background to null. Remember only one of them can be set to null. I set my Foreground to null and my Background to yellow.
You have several options for drawing a shape. You click and hold the left mouse button and drag out the shape. The left mouse button draws the shape from the corner and lets you decide how tall and wide you want it. You can click and hold the right mouse button and drag out the shape. The right mouse button either draws the shape from the center or the bottom left hand corner depending on the shape selected. In this case it will draw from the center. If you hold down the Shift key while you drag with either the left or right mouse button the shape will retain its proportions. Try drawing out the star shape using the methods above. When you get done just hit your delete key.
Now holding down the Shift key and the left mouse button draw out a Star shape. I started at (x:50 y:50) and dragged to (x:250 y:250) but you can make yours any size you want. Release the mouse button then release the Shift key. The coordinates are in the bottom right hand corner of the PSP 8 Status bar. If you don't see the status bar click View || Toolbars || Status.
Lets make sure our star is centered on the canvas. Click Edit || Cut (Ctrl+X) and then Edit || Paste || As new layer (Ctrl+L). Remember pasting as a new layer automatically centers it.
Click Layers || Duplicate to make a copy of your star then click Image || Rotate || Free Rotate (Ctrl+R). Choose Left or Right it doesn't matter, click the circle in front of Free and type 45.00 in the box (this is the degrees we are going to rotate), make sure All layers is NOT checked, and click OK.
Click Layers || Merge || Merge Visible and Save (File || Save). Close this image and lets create something else. Note: If we had created as Vector with a little work we could have combine the two vector layers (the original and the duplicate) into one shape and then exported the new shape but that is beyond the scope of this lesson.
Create a New canvas. (Click File|| New [Ctrl+N])
Width = 300 pixels
Height = 300 pixels
Resolution = 72.00 pixels
Background = Raster
Color Depth = 16 Million Colors (24 Bit)
Color = Transparent Checked
The Preset Shapes tool should still be selected. Change the shape from Star 1 to Rounded rectangle (its a little above the Star 1 shape). In the last lesson I included some button graphics to put text on. I used preset shapes to create those buttons. Let's create our own button this time.
Set your Foreground to null and your Background to a color you like. Holding down your left mouse button draw out a rounded rectangle the size you want your button to be.
Click Selections || Select All (Ctrl+A), Selections || Float (Ctrl+F), and Selections || Defloat (Ctrl+Shift+F). Your rounded rectangle should now be selected.
Click Selections || Modify || Contract = 8 then flood fill with Black or another complimentary color. This is to give us an outline.
Click Selections || Modify || Contract = 2 and flood fill with a lighter or darker shade of the edge or choose another color. We are almost done now.
Our button is looking rather flat so lets use one of PSP's effects to change that. We will be getting more into effects in the next lesson.
Click Selections || Select All (Ctrl+A), Selections || Float (Ctrl+F), and Selections || Defloat (Ctrl+Shift+F) to select your button.
Click Effects || 3D Effects || Buttonize and reset to default. Change the Height and Width to 8 and click OK. That's it you now have a button you can add text to if you wish.
Let's get rid of all the extra space. Click Edit || Copy (Ctrl+C) the Edit || Paste || As new image. Close the original. Save the copy and close it.
Jasc comes with shapes with that already has color and effects added that is where Retain style comes in.
Create a New canvas. (Click File|| New [Ctrl+N])
Width = 300 pixels
Height = 300 pixels
Resolution = 72.00 pixels
Background = Raster
Color Depth = 16 Million Colors (24 Bit)
Color = Transparent Checked
Click the Preset Shapes tool change the shape to Button 004. This time make sure Retain Style and Create as Vector are checked.
Holding down your left mouse button drag out a button the size you want it. You should notice that the button has the same color and effects as the original because we had Retain Style selected.
On you Layer Palette click the + sign in front of the Vector 1 layer then click the + in front of the Button 004 layers. You will see all the layers that make up the button.
Let's say you like this button style but you don't like the color since we had Create as Vector checked we can easily change the color.
Double click on the Color sub layer in the layers palette to bring up the Vector Property dialog. Click on the color box below Fill to open the Materials dialog. Now choose a color, gradient, or pattern that you like and click Ok Click Ok in the Vector Property dialog. If you wanted you could edit or delete the other sub layers or even add to them.
PSP 8 has a lot of shapes to play with and a lot of things you can do with them. This lesson was to show you how to use them and give you a general idea what you can do with them.
I can't draw so all my "drawings" start with a vector preset shape which I reshape by adding, deleting, moving, and editing nodes. I will teaching about vectors and node editing in my advanced lessons.
That's it for this lesson. I hope you enjoy exploring and using all the preset shapes Jasc has to offer. If you want more shapes do a search on the web, there are several places you can download more.