This tutorial is written in Version 9 but will work well in other versions. You will need a basic knowledge of PSP, including the Layers, names of tools and where to find them. All other instructions are written in detail. You will also need to have Animation Shop installed.

Supplies needed for this tutorial:

1. This tutorial uses a ding font called Celtic Patterns. It is a Freeware and Free-to-Share font. Download Here
2. A fattish font of your choice for your name. I used a font called Gardenia that you can download Here but you can use any font that allows a good outline and fill.
3. A gold glitter pattern. I used one called "goldglitter" that you can download Here. It was supplied by Jasc in one of their versions of PSP so you might already have it.
4. No outside filters or plugins are required.

Filled Sparkle Tutorial

1. Open a new image: 16 million colors, Transparent Background. The size will depend on how long your name is and how wide you will want the Celtic Pattern to be. I'm starting mine at 350 x 350 and will crop later. You might have to test the size of your name to get what you want.

2. Create a new Raster Layer.
   This will give you extra "working space" to try various backgrounds if you wish.

3. Activate your Text Tool and find the Celtic Patterns Font. Use the settings below:
       Foreground/Stroke: Green - I used "#187116"
       Background/Fill: White #ffffff
   Toolbar settings below:
   
   
   
   Type the letter "j" and you will get the pattern below. My image here is cropped but the pattern is displayed in the correct size.
   
   

4. Convert the Vector layer into a Raster layer and rename it "celtic pattern"

5. On to the text. Activate the Text Tool and choose the font you wish to use.
   Keep your Foreground/Stroke the same green as it was for the Celtic Pattern.
   Turn off (Set to Null) the Background/Fill.
   These are the settings in the Tool Bar that I used for my font but you may need to adjust the size for a different font or the length of your name.

   

   Just make sure that if you use a smaller size you still have enough space in your font for a nice sparkle fill.

   Place your name above the Celtic pattern. It doesn't matter how far because we will be doing more. Just make sure the name isn't overlapping the pattern. Similar to this example:

   Sample resized, yours will be larger.
   

   Note: There are quite a few other really pretty patterns in this font. Almost all of them will work well with this technique and you might find one you like even better than the example on this tut.

**Save** If you haven't been saving your .pspimage, do it now and many more times throughout the tutorial so you don't lose anything.

6. Next we'll start adding the gold. Turn off your text layer and click on the Celtic Pattern layer to make it active.

   

7. Activate the Magic Wand Tool and use these settings:

   
   
   

   Click anywhere Outside of your pattern and then go to Selections/Invert. At this point you should have just the pattern selected.

   

8. Keep the selection active and create a New Raster Layer BELOW the Patterned layer. Name this new layer "gold 1"

   

9. With the selection still active from the previous step and the new gold 1 layer you created active in the Layer Palette go to Selections/Modify/Contract and contract by 2

   Then using your Flood fill tool, fill the new gold 1 layer with the gold pattern that you want to use.

   

   The reason we contracted the selection was to insure that none of the gold would show outside of the pattern once the sparkle is added.

10. Deselect and duplicate your gold layer twice. Rename the duplicate layers "gold 2" and "gold 3".

    

11. Now you'll want to place your text in the position you want it to stay. If you want to resize your name now is also the time to do that. This will be the final size and position. I placed mine just a tiny bit above the Celtic Pattern.

    

12. Duplicate the text Vector layer (Sample A).
    Then Convert your new layer to a Raster Layer and rename it "Text". (Sample B).

         

13. If the sub-layer of the original Vector text layer is hidden, open it so you can see the text. With your Text Tool active, double click on the sub-layer to bring up the text input window. Now that your text is active go to the Materials Palette and Turn Off the green Background/Stroke and set the gold pattern you wish to use in the Background/Fill spot. Your text on that layer will now be gold with no border.

    I turned off the original outlined text so just the gold layer would show here.
    

    **Are you remembering to Save?**

14. Convert the gold text layer to a raster and make sure that it is Below the layer with only the green stroke test. Rename the layer "Gold Fill". Then duplicate that layer 2 times just like you did with the celtic pattern golds.

15. Now we'll add sparkle to the gold behind the Celtic pattern.
    Turn off the text layers and the top 2 Gold layers and we'll add noise for the sparkles. The screen shots below show how your layer palette should look, which layer should be highlighted, and the amount of noise to add for each layer.

    Go to Adjust/Add-Remove Noise/Add Noise with these settings:
        Uniform and Monochrome both checked.

        

16. Go up to the layers you have for the next now and add the same noise settings for each of the gold fill. 35 noise for the lowest Fold Fill layer, 40 noise on the next one up and 45 noise for the one just below the top green stroke text. Make sure you highlight each layer before adding the noise.

17. Use the Raster 2 layer that we added right at the beginning and fill that with whatever background you wish to use. I'm using plain white for mine but you may want something else.
    Then use the Crop Tool to crop out any part you don't want in your final image.

• Launch Animation Shop. We'll use the simple copy/paste method for animating our sig.

  1. I've included which layers should be turned off and on for each of the three frames there will be in this animation. When you have your layers the same for the first one, go to Edit/Copy Merged, right click on the work area of AS and "Paste as New Animation".
     
     For the last 2 frames, Copy/Merged and click on the previous frame to highlight it. Then Right click on the bar at the top of the frame and Paste after current frame.
     

        

•   Preview your animation and if you like what you see save it as a .gif.

• And there you have it. A sparkle animation that dosen't show the sparkle on the outline.

Terms of Use

Terms of Use This tutorial is copyrighted....©RollieB. Any similarity between this and any other tutorial is coincidental. The image you make with this tutorial is yours to do whatever you like with.

You may link to this tutorial using a text link only but may not share this tutorial in any other way through e-mail or on another site. If you are a member of a group and would like to share or do this tutorial in a group setting, please e-mail me for permission using the link below.

e-Mail Rollie

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