Hillside Farm

Paint Shop Pro Tube Painting

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Created by Arizona Kate ©2001 All rights reserved.
All tutorials, including images, remain the property of Arizona Kate and may not be sold
or distributed in any format without purchasing a license from Arizona Kate.

Suitable for beginner to intermediate users.
The goal of this project is to challenge our imaginations by creating a tube painting using only the tubes supplied with PSP 7 (plus a couple of buildings). We'll also work a little bit with vector shapes! If you haven't reviewed the intro & program notes on page 1, please do so now.

Open new image 500x400
Turn rulers ON...we'll be using rulers to describe cursor location.
view>rulers

RC and save this color swatch. Open file and keep handy ...use Dropper to select colors.

As we go along, we'll be saving all our selections to the Alpha Channel.... it will make it easier if we need to use one of these selections again!! selections>save to alpha channel or selections>load from alpha channel

Paint the Sky....

Create a new layer for sky. Set your stroke color and fill color to the 2 sky colors from our color swatch. Create a selection for the sky that encloses the top half of your canvas....size of selection doesn't have to be exact...just make sure you get all edges (see tips below)! Fill the sky with a linear gradient, lightest blue on bottom. Select 'gradient' in your Styles box with these settings:
linear gradient, angle 0, repeat 0, foreground/background gradient colors
Smooth out the gradient by adding 4% noise. effects, noise, uniform noise 4
Select none.

Create a new layer for clouds. Add some random clouds using cloud tube. Adjust size of tube to make a variety of clouds. You can place each cloud on different layer if you want to play around with adjusting placement and size of each cloud.
Add Gaussen Blur to clouds to soften. effects, blur, gaussen blur 3.
Lower opacity of cloud layer(s) to about 85, your choice.

When satisfied with look of sky, hide visibility for every layer except blue gradient and clouds and Merge Visible. Rename layer SKY.

Selection tips:
When selecting, if you don't get enough of an area, hold Shift Key down as you drag cursor around to ADD TO a selection.
If you get too much, hold Control Key down as you drag cursor around to REMOVE an area from selection.
To enclose ALL of an area, drag cursor outside the canvas as you go around ...it'll select all whe way to edge.
To easily select a specific area, double click your Selection Tool and type in the top, bottom, left and right locations for your selection in the dialog box.

Hill on left....

Create new layer for left rear hill.

Using Freehand Selection tool, start at 150 on left ruler and select a large area with curved top and covering all of bottom area as shown in this screenshot. freehand selection, anti alias on, feather 2

Save this selection to alpha channel, we'll use it again...but don't deselect yet!

Select the lightest green from color swatch for stroke and darkest green for fill. Select 'gradient' in your Styles box with these settings: linear gradient, angle 0, repeat 0, foreground/background gradient colors. Use the Edit button and the sliders in the gradient preview to edit merge point of gradient at about 70. Select OK and fill your selection with this green linear gradient. Deselect.

Add 12% noise to smooth out gradient.
effects, noise, uniform noise 12

Add 'plowed' area to hill.....

Create new layer for brown field. Using Freehand Selection Tool, draw a shape in lower left area of previous hill shape. Start at 200 on left ruler and select a small area with curve top, include all bottom area.
freehand selection, anti alias on, feather 2
Save selection to alpha channel, we'll use it again...but don't deselect yet!

Set stroke color to the light golden brown in swatch, fill color to darkest brown. Fill selection with brown gradient, same settings as for green hill.
linear gradient, angle 0, repeat 0, foreground/background gradient colors.

Deselect. Add 15% noise to smooth out gradient.
effects, noise, uniform noise 15

Hill on right....

Create a new layer for another hill. Use Freehand Selection tool as before. Select an area with curved top, starting at 175 on RIGHT and ending about 300 on LEFT. Cover all bottom area. Refer to screenshot for placement.

Save selection to alpha channel as before and then fill area with linear gradient, same settings as before. Colors light green & dark green from swatch.
linear grad, angle 0, repeat 0, foreground/background gradient

Deselect. Add 15% noise to smooth out gradient.
effects, noise, uniform noise 15

Add color perspective...

To make each hill a slightly different shade of green and, at the same time, to make the rear hills recede a little, let's reduce the color saturation for each hill layer. Make the middle hill (the hill on right) the active layer and select colors>adjust>hue>saturation>lightness. Lower the color saturation by -4 (leave hue & lightness at 0).

Make the hill in background (on far left) the active layer and reduce it's color saturation by -8.

Foreground road.....

Create new VECTOR layer to draw the road (RC layer icon on layer palette and select new vector layer). Set your color boxes to the light golden brown for stroke and dark golden brown for fill. Set Stroke Styles box to null and fill to linear gradient, repeat should be 0. Change angle to 90 (preview should show lightest brown on right). Hit the Edit button and move the center marker for gradient blend back to 50. Gradient type should still be set to foreground-background.

Select Preset Shapes, rectangle. Check both vector and anti-alias ON.
Draw a small rectangle...any size... near the notch that was cut in the foreground hill in previous step.

With the Object Selector tool, RC the vector rectangle, select Node Edit. Move the 4 corner nodes to create the curved shape of a road in foreground. Drag the nodes around, placing one on each side of the notch in hill and other 2 nodes all the way down to bottom edge of canvas. See screenshot above for road shape. To make the sides curve a little...select the upper left node, RC and select curve before. A handle will appear next to the node. Move the handle slightly to make the left side of the road curve a little. Then select the upper right node, RC and select curve after. Move this node handle to make a more noticeable curve to the right side of the road. RC select quit node editing.

With the road still selected, RC and select create raster selection. You should now have the marching ants around your vector shape. Save this selection to Alpha Channel as 'foreground road'. Do not de-select yet.

RC the road layer on your Layer Palette and select convert to raster layer.
Invert the marching ants and apply a cutout effect as follows:
vertical & horizontal -6, opacity 70, blur 20, color black, fill interior UN-checked.

This puts a shadow along the edge of the road, but it also puts some shadow in the sky and other unwanted areas. To fix this, load selection from alpha channel for the foreground hill. Invert this selection and Cut. All unwanted shadow should now be removed. Deselect.

Add 15% noise to smooth out gradient and add a little texture.
effects, noise, uniform noise 15

Save in psp format if you haven't done so already!! ;-)

At this point lets free up some memory...empty the clipboard and the command history. edit>empty>clipboard and edit>empty>command history. Do not empty command history if you think you might want to UNDO anything that's been done so far. You can empty clipboard at any time ... it only stores your last step.

Road on middle hill.....

Using the same golden brown colors and same settings as the foreground road, let's extend the road onto the middle hill using the vector tools again. Create a new VECTOR layer (RC layer icon on layer palette and select new vector layer). This new layer should be BELOW the foreground hill layer but ABOVE the middle hill layer. If necessary, drag the layer button on your Layer Palette into the correct position.

Using Preset Shapes, draw a rectangle (vector ON) for the road on the middle hill...any size. Select the rectangle with the Object Selector tool, RC and select Node Edit. Move each node around until you have a road shape going up and over the hill....extending the end of the road PAST the crest of the hill. Refer to screenshot above for road placement. Make the road narrower on the left side of the hill to give it some perspective and gently curve the road across the hill. To curve the sides of the rectangle, select each node, RC and select Node Type curve before or curve after, as needed. RC quit node editing.

With the road still selected, RC select create raster selection. Save this selection to Alpha Channel as middle road. Do not de-select yet. RC the ROAD layer on your Layer Palette and select convert to raster layer.

Apply drop shadow with these settings: vertical & horizonal -2, opacity 75, blur 10, color black.

Again, we have some shadow in the sky and other unwanted areas! Correct this by loading middle hill selection from alpha channel, invert selection and Cut. Deselect.

Add 10% noise to smooth out gradient and add a little texture.
effects, noise, uniform noise 10

Cornfield...

Create new layer (raster) ABOVE the layer for the brown field but below the foreground hill layer. Use the corn tube that came with PSP 7 and plant some corn in this field (or you can use the wheat tube).
You're going to have to reduce the scale of the corn tube a lot to fit into your field. I used a scale of 10 and applied the tube starting at the top of the field and dragging straight down.

Fence...

Create new layer (raster) above all the other layers.
Using the Line Tool, paint a rustic fence in the grass alongside the road. Use dark brown stroke color, solid line style. Start with a line size of 10 for the posts and gradually decrease brush size as posts recede into distance and go down over top of hill. Use size 6 or smaller line for fence rails.

Apply Effects>Inner Bevel to the fence using the following settings: Color=light golden brown, bevel=quarter round, width=5 to 8, smoothness=15, depth=5 to 8, ambience=12, shininess=0, angle=280, intensity=50 to 60, elevation=20.

Add 15% noise to add a little texture to fence.

Fence Shadow...

Create another new raster layer. Position this layer UNDER the fence layer.

Using Drop Shadow is not going to give us a realistic fence shadow, so let's paint a shadow for the fence instead!

Select black for stroke color and use the same line sizes as you used to make the fence. Draw the fence again...except, this time, lay the fence down across the road to represent it's shadow. Don't forget to align each post shadow with the bottom of the matching post. It might be easier to use the Brush Tool for this step instead of the Line Tool.

Apply Gaussian Blur of 2 to the fence shadow. Reduce opacity of shadow layer to between 40 and 60.

If any of the fence shadow shows where it shouldn't be....such as over the top of the hill....correct it by loading your foreground hill selection from alpha channel, invert selection & cut.

House and barn....

Now's the time to look thru your collection of tubes and clip art for a farmhouse and a barn. Resize your tubes to fit scene and add barn to one hill, house to the other.

Create some shadows for the buildings. Don't use the Drop Shadow tool, it creates the wrong type of shadow for a painting. Create a new layer just for SHADOWS. Paint shadows alongside buildings with the paintbrush. Use Gaussian Blur of 1 or 2 to blur the shadows and reduce opacity for SHADOWS layer to between 50 and 60. Remember, the light is coming from the left ...so everything should have a shadow on right side!

Trees and flowers...

Paint Shop Pro 7 includes tubes for summer trees. Use these to add some trees around your farmhouse and by the barn (see finished image). Create some shadows for these trees on your SHADOWS layer.

PSP7 also includes a couple of tubes for dandelions. Use the smaller dandelion tube to add some flowers near the house and near the fence. You will need to use more than one layer to place some flowers in front of the fence layer and some behind the fence!

Keep changing the scale of the tubes to add a variety of sizes for trees and flowers, depending on their location in the scene.

Finishing!!!!!

Get creative and add some more stuff!! Add a road to the barn and a walkway to the house.
Add some small rocks strewn about....some birds or butterflies ...a rural mailbox or a flag...a dog walking along...a cat on the fence...????
What else can you think to add?

Sign your painting and export as optimized jpg...keep file size as small as possible!!!
Hope you enjoyed this tut!