PSP Tutorial WMP11 Page 3

Bottom Glow / Bottom Glow Reflection: I bet your saying to yourself, well why couldn’t we just gaussian blur this and end up with the same result faster? Well with Vector, you can resize this as large as you want and the quality stays the same. You can try it yourself through Image > Resize, and change the percentage over 100%. See You’ll notice everything is intact and no clarity is lost. Even Windows Vista will use vectors for their icons so that no matter what size they are, they will still look neat. Oops did we get side tracked..

Step 16: Make sure you know how to edit nodes, because I’ll assume you’ll know how to. You’ll want to duplicate the bottom blue circle again from layer one.  You can do this several ways but the best way is to just click it from Object Selector Tool (O) and right click on Copy. Make a new Layer and Name it Bottom Glow, and Paste as a new Vector on this layer. Make sure its on the new layer, if its not, you can move it to the top most layer in your Layer Pallete, by opening the + signs and dragging it upwards.

Step 17: Move this Circle a bit to the right of your original, and edit it’s properties to become a gradient. Make sure FILL is selected, Stroke must be unchecked, click on the color box to get to the gradients tab. First thing you should do is change it to LINEAR Style. Click on Angle and change it to 90. Edit Its Gradient so it is like the one below. On the Left and Right will be the color #2250b7. In the Middle, the Color will be #74bee1. To Add this middle color, just click anywhere between the arrows. Now Set it up like the picture below.

Step 18: After your done you’ll have another circle that has a blue stripe in the middle. Don’t worry about that.. Your going to node edit this circle again. (AWW MAN). So you know the Drill. Click on the Circle with the Object Selection Tool (O), Click on The Pen Tool (V) Right click on the Circle, and select Convert to Path. Click on the Circle so 4 Nodes Appear, Click on the top part and delete that node.

Step 19: Drag the circle over the original circle. You can do that by staying in Arrow Mode, and clicking on the line. Just like the Image Above

Step 20: Add a New Node in the middle between the left and the right nodes. When you add one there will be a bump on the left side and straight on the right side. To Connect the points, click on your middle node with the Arrow tool, If you click it while your in Line mode, then you’ll create a new line and it will get messed up. To Connect the Points together hold down shift and attach it to the next side. You’ll see the word JOIN appear. Once its attached you’ll see a Node with a circle at the attachment.

Step 21: In the middle of your line, create a new node by selecting the Line tool and holding down Control until the word ADD appears. Change Its Properties to Symmetric or Asymmetric.  You will then have to get it looking like the picture below.  Change the positioning of the other nodes so it has that half moon falling over on its side look. You can also delete nodes and join them together, it may be best to do that to make them pointed like it is below. Here is one with 4 nodes, 2 were joined to create the pointed edges. Also the arrow positioning shows how its supposed to be.

Step22: Notice that in the above 3 pictures there is a bit of blue showing off at the edge. Next, copy your Bottom Glow Reflection and add a new vector layer, name it Bottom Left Reflection. After that, Paste it. Change it’s fill to white. Stroke Must be Unchecked.

Step23: Rotate it to so that it points like this:

Step249.999: Change your layer transparency to 5. Move this New Vector Layer Below your Bottom Glow Reflection. Here is a List of All Layers and Transparencies.

Top Layer: Bottom Glow Reflection. Transp: 100
Sub Layer: Bottom Left Reflection. Transp: 5
Mid Layer: Shine Curvature. Transp: 36
Sub Layer: Top Shine: Transp: 34
Bot Layer: Circle: Transp: 100
Background: BLACK

Wow That was hard but Congratulations YOU DID IT! If you made it this far your now a graphic designer, and you should be able to create your own layouts, or even be able to mimic them. This tutorial taught you how to Node Edit, Use Transparencies, and Use Gradients that mimic Gaussian Blurs. Lets have a Easy Tutorial Next.