DisDat Designs - Paint Shop Pro 7 Tutorials
Creating a Vector Tulip - Part One
also includes Exporting Shapes as a Group

Tulip image Tulip imageTulip image Tulip image

This is an Beginner/Intermediate PSP 7 Tutorial
Getting to know The Vector Tools and Options
Remember to SAVE OFTEN!

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Tulip Color Palette choices

1. Create a new Image 500 x 500

2. First we will make the top flower part of the tulip.
FOREGROUND COLOR: color of your choice (I am using pink)
BACKGROUND COLOR: Black
Leave Textures as NULL and check off the LOCK option to lock your colors in for all tools.
If you need more help with the Color Palette, click here for my tutorial.

 

Preset Shapes Options

3. Choose the PRESET SHAPES tool shapes tool and select the ELLIPSE shape from the pull-down list in your TOOL OPTIONS.

Check off ANTIALIAS and CREATE AS VECTOR. LINE WIDTH (2) & LINE STYLE (straight)

4. With your mouse on the canvas, drag out an ellipse shape. You now have an Ellipse shape with a BLACK outline and PINK fill. There should be a Selection Box around your shape.

You can use the mover tool to position it just right on your canvas.

Layer Palette

5. Notice in your LAYER PALETTE, a VECTOR layer was added. Double click on it, to rename it to TULIP.

Click on the + sign. This opens the layer up to show the sub-layers. All the new vector shapes we will be adding, will be sub-layers of this one vector layer.

Double click on the sub-layer that says "Ellipse" -- and the PROPERTIES dialog box appears (see below):

Top Flower Layer Properties

Rename this layer TOP FLOWER -- notice that the color styles are shown, along with the line style, line width, etc. We will be doing more with the Vector Properties box later on in the tutorial, so for now, after you rename, click OK.

 

Object Tool Options

6. Click on the VECTOR OBJECT SELECTION Tool Vector Select Tool Make sure the Vector Editing Box is around the Ellipse. If not, click your mouse to select the shape.

Click on the NODE EDIT button in the Tool Options box. Now the Ellipse has no color and there are 4 nodes or small squares on the top, bottom, left and right on the shape. This is where we are going to add and edit the nodes to create our tulip shape.

 

Added Nodes

7. While holding down the CTRL key, position your mouse on the Ellipse, and when the ADD +ADD appears, click to add a new node to the shape. When a node is first added to a smooth shape, it will have control arms with a round circle on one end, an arrow on the other, and a square in the middle. (See RED circled node).

Add 6 nodes total -- move the nodes so they are evenly spaced. There should be 3 nodes on the top left quarter of the ellipse, and 3 on the right and 1 at the middle.

 

Move 3 Nodes

8. Now, we are going to move 3 of the nodes. Start with the one at the top, move it down a few pixels. Skip the two that are next to the middle one, and move the 2 that are on either side of them. See my example image.

It is now starting to take shape.

move nodes up

9. Move the two nodes at the end, up to just under the height of the two nodes at the top. See my example image. Adjust the placement of any nodes to get them just right.

Click once outside the canvas window, and now look at your tulip! Satisfactory? If not, go back into NODE EDIT, and re-position the nodes again. If you make any mistakes, use EDIT>UNDO.

Let's move onto PART TWO

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