A tube and font of your choice ~ I used the artwork of Caron Vinson for the examples in this tut. Please visit her website here
You can purchase a licence to use Caron's work, please visit CILM Here
Unzip the supplies and install the mask into your mask folder and the brush into your brush folder. I have included a jpeg image of the brush and mask too.
Open a new image 500 x 500 with a transparent background. Floodfill with white.
Add a new raster layer. Set your foreground and background colours to two soft, complimentary colours from your tube. Set the foreground to gradient with these settings;
Floodfill new layer with your gradient. Make a note of the hue and saturation value of your darker colour in the gradient.
Go to Effects > Plug-ins > ICNet Software > Filters Unlimited 2 > Special Effects 1 > Aged Film.
Apply with the default settings;
Go to Effects > Plug-ins > ICNet Software > Filters Unlimited 2 > Special Effects 1 > Venetian Blinds (Horizontal).
Apply with these settings;
Go to Adjust > Hue and Saturation > Colourise and change the hue and saturation values to the values from your gradient> Apply.
Go to layers > Load/Save Mask > Load Mask from Disk.
Look for the Edge rectangle mask in the drop down menu and apply with these settings;
In your layer Palette right click on the mask layer and hit delete. Say yes to merging the mask into the layer below it.
Layers > Merge Group.
Duplicate the merged layer. Resize the duplicate by 75% with bicubic resample checked and all layers unchecked.
Reduce the opacity of the original mask layer to around 52.
Hide your background layer and merge visible. Resize the merged layer by 75%.
For the next part you can use my tube or you can create your own, if you create your own you can change the colour to suit the tube you use and also the shape of the accent layer. If you are using my tube skip the next few steps.
Open a new image 300 x 300 with a transparent background. Set your foreground to your gradient and your background to the light colour you used for your gradient.
Click on your preset shape tool and select the shape you want to use. Using these settings draw out your shape in the center of your canvas;
Right click and convert to raster layer.
Go to Effects > Plug-ins > Mura's Meister > Copies.
Apply with these settings
This is what you should have;
***If you are using my heartstring pick up from here***
Copy your string of hearts and paste onto your original canvas as a new layer. Resize by 85% and move to the right of your canvas.
Duplicate the hearts and go to Image > Mirror. Duplicate the mirrored string and move the copy down with your mover tool to create a continuous string of hearts.
Your tag should now look something looking like this;
Right click on the top layer (your heart string) and go to Merge > Merge Down. Add the following Drop Shadow;
Activate the other heart string layer and repeat the drop shadow.
Now repeat the drop shadow only change the horizontal and vertical values to minus 3.
Repeat on the other heart string layer.
Copy and paste your tube as a new layer. Resize her to fit your tag and position her underneath the merged heart string layer and in the bottom left hand corner.
Repeat the drop shadows (once with the values set at 3 and again with the values set at -3).
To get it so that it looks like her wings are in front of the hearts layer, lower the opacity of the hearts to about 51. You want to be able to see through them. Make sure the hearts layer is the active one and take your eraser tool. Erase the hearts that over lap her wings. Its easier if you zoom in to do this. Make the hearts layer back to 100 opacity and using the eraser tool tidy up any stray pixels.
Add a new raster layer. Look for the brush I supplied (or if you want to you can type in your quotation). Apply the brush once using a darker colour from your tube. Move this layer down below your tube layer and reduce the opacity to around 64.
Merge all layers visible.
Crop off any excess white around the edge of your tag.
Go to Image > Picture Frame.
Select the Edge brush 01 frame from the menu and apply it with Frame outside image checked. This will give a softer edge to your tag.
Crop your image again leaving a white area all around the edge of the tag.
Go to Image > Add Borders.
Set the border colour to the same one you used for your quotation and add a symmetric border of 3 pixels.
Add another border to your tag this time changing the colour to white and with 5 pixels.
Right click on your layer palette and promote the background layer.
Add a new layer and send to bottom, floodfill with white. Highlight the layer with your fairy on it and resize by 85% with bicubic resample checked, all layers unchecked. Apply the drop shadow again changing the shadow colour to the one you used for your darker border and quote. (apply once with the values set to 3 and repeat withthe values set to -3).
Now add your name to the tag. I used Lainie day for mine in the same dark colour I used for the border and quote with these settings;
Pull the nodes on the vector to position the text where you want it and convert to raster layer. Add the following drop shadow;
Repeat with the values set to -3.
You can leave it at that if you want to. Resize and save as a Jpeg.
If you want to animate read on!
Merge all layers visible. Duplicate your image twice giving you a total of three layers.
This is a really easy way of adding a glittery shimmer. Zoom in to your image and activate your freehand selection tool. Set it to these settings;
Carefully select around the areas you want to add the shimmer to. Hold down your shift key if you are selecting seperate areas.
Make sure you have the original layer activated. Go to Effects > Plug-ins > DSB Flux > Bright Noise. Apply with the following settings;
Keep selected and activate the middle layer. Apply bright noise once more this time clicking mix once.
Activate the third layer and apply the bright noise once more clicking mix twice.
Selections > Select None.
Save your image as a psp file. Open Animation Shop and then locate the file you just saved. Check that the animation looks ok (I kept the settings to 10) save as a gif and you are done!
