Help With Paint Shop Pro 8

I need someone to help me with a paint shop pro item i am working on that involves layers and an imagine i already have. If any one feels they can help me i would greatly appreciate it
Basically i want to take 2 differnt pics combind thim as 1. I know how to make poofs to bring in the game. I watched the Q time clip robin made for photo shop and if i had somthing like that showing me what i like to do would be so nice and easy lol. Please help

I'd like to help, but I'm not sure I understand precisely what you need help with.
Do you have two open images and you just want both images in one? Or do you want to sample some parts of one image onto another?
Sorry if you've explained and I'm just missing what you mean.

-Sun

Iam sorry ill try to exsplain it better lol . i open my paint shop and click on new image with a transperant back ground. From there i use my font and typ out what i need it to say use what drop shadow and color i need. thin arange it all way i want it. Ok now i like to add a pic. What iam to use is a pic of 2 doves each holding a rose in there beaks flying off. I guess it would be more like a greeting card but iam useing it as a poof in game. Normaly somthing like this i just inlarg the pic and add the words inside it done easy lol but with this pic when i in larg it the pic its self just isent right looks blury and just will just awfull. I was told to use the layers that the pic would come out lot better and i could do lot more with other pics as well.

I saw your post about this in off topic before I saw it here.... This is what I wrote for you there.....

Ok practice this.... find a very simple picture of something, like a daisy or something. Open it up in PSP, use your magic wand tool to outline the image.
Go to "Selections" then "invert" to make the outline arrange itself around just the daisy.
Go to "Edit" then "copy".
Next Go to "File" then "new".
A window will pop where you can select the type of new page you want.
Choose "Rastar image" then make sure the box labeled "transparent" is checked and hit ok.
You should see a new window pop up that looks like a gray and white checkerboard.
Then go back to "Edit" and then "paste".
You should see your daisy cutout appear on the checkerboard.
Next.. Go to "layers" and choose "new mask layer" then "from image"
Next go to layers and choose "save mask layer to alpha"
Finally, go to File and save it with a name.
To be able to download an image into SL you will want to save it as a Targa .tga file.

Just play around with this and when it works then you can really dig into the program and start playing with all the tools and just see what you come up with.... but this is a first step to understanding the layers... hopefully.

Unfortunately I've only just started learning myself so if there is anyone out there who can explain it more thoroughly go for it.

Basically All you have to do is open your new image as Raster (you get the checkerboard deal) Put all your images on it - merge them (merge all visible, you'll find it under layers) then under layers click on "new mask layer" then "save mask layer to alpha"
Then save it as .tga, give it a name and you're good to go.
You'll be able to upload it in SL and you've got the texture for your poof with a transparent background.

ooooh ok wait, i just reread what you wrote and now I think i understand what you're saying. When you are trying to resize an image onto your rastar page it is becoming blurry and out of focus as you make it bigger and bigger. I'm guessing the larger you try to go with it, the more out of focus it becomes?

Now I'm a beginner to so if I'm wrong here please someone feel free to correct me and maybe I'll learn something new too. But the problem (I THINK) is simply that some images if they are too small when they start out can not be made bigger without blurryness. I believe you simply have to start with a larger image. The way I test whether an image will work if it say something I've pulled off the web and not drawn myself, is I resize the image before I go to all the trouble to do the cutting and pasting. If when I resize it bigger it loses too much clarity, then I know not to waste my time on it and find a sharper and larger image.

If I'm completely offbase here someone please correct me and teach us both

Ok i did just what you said here but when i went to layers thin merge the merge all visable was not high lighted i could not select it. Iam realy lost .

If merge all visible wasn't an option..... then either the the images do not need to be merged (as in they already are) or for some reason I can't answer, being that i'm a beginner too, they can't be merged. This has not happened to me yet so i can not answer it.

Anyone????

If all of your images have been pasted onto the raster image i might suggest trying to go straight to the "make a new mask layer" option and see if it lets you. Beyond that i'm sorry, i wish i knew more.


Maybe you should try bringing this thread back to the top again tomorow during the day by posting in it again another plea for help.... maybe there will be more people around then who know much much more than me. I hope.

From what i can gather reading your post,you have an image that you want to resize,but its losing quality as you do,correct?

One tip,is when you save your work repeatedly,save it in a lossless format such as .png or .psd Never use .jpg.

Open the Resize window (Tabs up top- Image>Resize). In the Resize window thtat pops up,four lines from the bottom of the window theres a check box [ ] Resample Using. Then theres a drop box. Make sure Smart Size is the one selected,its the best overall,and you lose less quality.

If none of this helps, the only other thing i can do is agree with Allana and tell you that if the original size of the dove image is to large/small ,then no amount of resizing is ever going to work. It will always end up blurry unfortunatly.

Oh... "smart size"... I never noticed an option like that. I'm still fiddling around with the tools. I'll give it a looksee and see what it does.

Ok ill try this again lol. You see all over sl pics of the 3 girls or guys in a differnt poss in the same pic say for modeling clothes or hair or what ever.A person posses takes a pic save that pic to hard drivethin posses a differnt way takes a pic saves that pic to hard drive and thin again with a 3rd poss so now you have 3 pics each of the same person but in a differnt poss.How do i get all 3 pics as 1 ? So when i bring the pic in game it has 3 girls all 3 the same girl but differnt poss
sign very very confused

Ok lol.

Open each of the three images in PSP. So now you have three windows open.

Open a new window in PSP (File>New). Make the dimensions of this new window 1024(width)x1024(height).

On one of the original three windows you opened with the images of the girls posing,right click the bar at the top of the window. I menu will appear with Cut,Copy,Paste.ect.

In this menu, hover your mouse over the Copy wording and left click your mouse. Now you have a copy on your clipboard.

Go back to the 1024 x 1024 window, and again, right click the bar at the top of this window. You now have the same menu which appears with Cut,Copy, Paste.ect.

Hover your mouse over the Paste wording,and another menu appears to the right of the word Paste.

Move your mouse over the latest menu, and down to the wording Paste As A New Selection and left click your mouse.

You now have the image of the girl posing in the new window and when you move your mouse,you will be moving the image. Move it to where you are happy and left click your mouse.

It will now have a dotted line running around the outside of the image indicating its floating, and not yet confirmed.

To the right of the PSP screen is a pallete named Layers. You should see the words Floating Selection. Right click this word,a menu appears. Hover your mouse up to Promote Selection To Layer .

And thats it. You now have 2 layers. The first is the original 1024x1024 blank window,the second is the image of the girl posing. Now all you have to do is repeate these steps with each of the other images you want to make up your full complete image so you have something like 4 or 5 layers in total.

When you are done, right click the top of the 1024x1024 image window and left click Copy Merged .

Right click anywhere in the PSP work window (grey background behind your images) and Click Paste As A New Image .

Now goto Resize ( Tabs up top, Image>Resize ) And resize it back down to either 512(Width) x 512 (Height), or 256 x256.

Tabs up top, click File>Save As. Make sure you save your completed image as a .tga file, then upload it into game.

Whew,that should cover it. I have explained this in the easiest way i know. I personally use keyboard short cuts for copying/pasteing and most everything else. Once you learn PSP you should be doing these kind of things in under 20 seconds. lol

Hope it helps!

Lord Wishbringer told you the right way, now here's a lazy way. (Cuz I'm all about the lazy)

If it's not visible, activate the layer palette by hitting F8. Figure out which is your target image, the one you want all the layers on. Then, open one of the other images, click the layer you want to move in the layer palette and drag and drop it anywhere in the target image.
Whalla! All your images in one handy dandy window with no copy and pasting on multiple layers. You can then move them about also using the layer palette.

Also, if you are resizing an image up and it's getting really pixelated you may try sharpening it first before resizing. Adjust/sharpness/sharpen and then resize up.
It doesn't always work, but worth a try.

-Sun

OH ty ty ty you guys ar great I still have one prob. Iam starting off with just 2 pics i have thim both up pluse the 1024 image. ok i right click the first pic and click copy. Now i right click the 1024 and click past as new selection ok i have the image there and floating just like you said it would be here comes the BUT lol . th eimage is so huge it wont fit on the 1024

heheh

Ok, are you wanting to use the whole of this huge image in your final picture? If so, i think you are going to run into problems. You can Resize the huge image down to 1024x1024,but i can see the image getting pixelated and looking screwy.

The other thing to do, is to crop off the parts of the huge image, and just resize the remainder down to 1024x1024.

I wanted to so think you to all that help me learn how to work with layers. The project i was doing turnd out so good the buyers gave me more work to do YAY lol. again think you all very very much

Glad to have helped!

Oh Good!! Glad it worked out well for you.