Combination Masks
I did this tutorial with PSP 9. I have not tried it in other versions.
Materials needed:
Paint Shop Pro 9 and two jpgs - one of a winter sky and one soft woman's face.
Here are four skyline photographs for the first mask:
Sky 1
Sky 2
Sky 3
Sky 4
The second mask is from a painting by A. Andrew Gonzales
There are lots of ways to create your own masks in PSP. Masks are not scarey, nor are they painful. Just little tricky at first.
This tut shows you how to make a greyscale mask. I'll spare you the explanations about what masks are and how they work, except where there's black, the image will show up and where there's white, the mask is transparent. Shades of grey are make up degrees of opacity. The lighter the grey, the more transparent the mask area becomes.
This project should take between 15 and 30 minutes. Choose two pictures to work with. You will make and combine two masks for this tutorial.
Mask 1 (Background) is a photo of trees against the January skyline. Open your skyline photo in PSP.
Mask 2 is the goddess looking down through the trees. Find a similar picture to the one I chose. Open it in PSP and minimize it.
 
Shift + D to duplicate the the sky photo. Close the original and work from the copy. Leave it large to begin with. You can reduce it later. Make sure the layer pallet is open. Right click on Background layer. Promote to raster layer.
Adjust > Brightness and Contrast > Brightness and Contrast. Raise both brightness and contrast so you get a good sharp contrast. I used Brightness +18 and Contrast +49.
Select your Magic Wand at these settings.
Click somewhere on the light area. If enough of the sky was selected, tap your delete key. If you want to delete more of the light blue/purple parts of the sky, click on the areas you want to remove until you are satisfied then tap the delete key. Do not de-select. Flood fill the selection with white.
- (You can also select the dark area and invert the selection before deleting and flood filling your area with white. I did it both ways and got slightly different but just as interesting results.)
- Another way to make the light areas disappear is to use the eraser tool and dab out the light areas. If you do it that way, add a new raster layer, move it to the bottom and flood fill with white.
When you are satisfied with the cleanup, choose Layers > Merge > Merge All - Flatten.
Image > Greyscale.
Resize your mask to 300 pixels on the longest side, using Bicubic resampling. It can be small! Save as a jpg and minimize it.
Open the jpg of the woman. Shift + D to duplicate it. Close the original. Promote the background to a raster layer. Adjust the brightness and contrast so that the darker lines are clearly visible and contrast well against the light colors.
Use the magic wand to select the lighter colors. Tap delete. Floodfill with white.
Image > Greyscale.
Resize the woman so the longest edge is 300 pixels.
Save as a jpg.
Minimize it.
Let's put these beauties together!
Open a new image 600 X 600, transparent.
Floodfill the first layer with a dark color of your choice.
I chose #ab92b6 - a dark lavender.
Add a new raster layer and floodfill it with white.
In the layer palette, right click on the white layer.
New Mask Layer - From Image. Select the skyline jpg.
Right click on the Group line in the Layer Palette
Merge > Merge Group.
New raster layer.
Move to the top.
Flood fill it with white.
Right click on the new layer.
New Mask Layer > From Image. Select the woman's face.
Right click on the group header for the new mask in the layer pallet.
Merge > Merge Group.
Change the layer property to Luminance and set the Opacity between 50 - 60%.
Image > Resize 560 X 560 pixels - Resize All Layers UNCHECKED.
With the top layer selected, add a drop shadow to the entire layer using these settings.
Use the mover tool to move the top layer around so the face looks best over the trees.
Raise or lower the opacity of the top and second layers to get different effects. You can play with the layer properties for different effects.
If you want to adjust the width or length of the top layer, be sure it's selected and use the raster deform tool. Click on one of the edge nodes.
When it turns into a bi-directional arrow, drag it inward. Position it where you want it.
You can also use a brush/multiple brushes to add to and compliment your picture. Use the same color as your background layer. To be on the safe side, add a new raster layer for each brush you choose so you can move it around, mirror it, or make other changes to it.
For different effects with this image, select the dark bottom layer and use the Colorize tool.
 
Add your name and watermark.
Merge All> Flatten.
Resize your image to fit the occassion and pat yourself on the back.
vetch |
