Created April 1, 2002 © Copyright Moon's Designs
Property of Moon's Designs
This is my creation, any similarity to other tutorials on the Internet is unintentional.
Please do not copy or place this tutorial or any graphics to any other place without written permission directly from me. Thank you.

 

This tutorial was last updated on September 7, 2002

Welcome back! It sure felt good to stretch didn't it? We're now going to discuss the importance of setting up folders and how to set up some of your preferences.

Organization is the key to happy PSPing. As far as I'm concerned you can't have enough folders *grin*. Collecting tubes, brushes, gradients, patterns, etc. is a lot of fun. If you don't organize from the beginning, you will be in for a lot of heartache and work when you DO start organizing. Trust me, I speak from experience.

Set up a new folder on your hard drive either in My Documents or just on your C: drive. You do NOT want this folder in your PSP program. If you are fortunate to have an additional hard drive, set it up there. Create your folder with a new name such as PSP Extras or PSP1. Inside that folder create new folders called Tubes, Brushes, Gradients, Patterns, Frames, Shapes, and Plugins. In the section below I will show you how to set up your preferences so PSP will "see" your new folders and access them.

In my tubes folder I have even MORE subfolders. I have one for angels, fairies, animals, native american, etc., etc. After I export my tubes (Files-->Export-->Picture Tubes) I use the Browse option in PSP, Files-->Browse, and move them into the proper folders.

There are some wonderful people in the PSP community who create these and are willing to share with others. Make sure you read their terms and copyright information! Nothing is more discouraging or frightening, especially to a newbie, than to receive an e-mail stating you have violated somebody's terms or copyright. To remember where you found your tubes, brushes, etc., you will want to set up a subfolder in your tubes, brushes, etc. and name it the site you received the download from.

I understand what you are thinking. I can hear you! LOL. You are thinking that you'll remember where you found them and this seems like an awful lot of work. You won't remember and it's a lot more work to do it later.

You will want to set up a separate folder for all the fonts you download for PSP ~~ and there will be a lot of them!. *grin* There are a couple of reasons for doing this. a) You don't want PSP to become so bogged down with fonts, that it will become sluggish. b) If you have too many fonts in your Windows fonts folder, it will take much longer to locate the font you want in the drop down menu when using the text tool. c) PSP does not support bitmap (or raster) fonts, such as MS Sans Serif. It does support True Type and Type 1 fonts.

Prior to opening PSP, go to your fonts folder and open the font you will be using. You will get a window that looks like this:

You can see the name of the font, the file size, who developed the font and what it will look like when you access it. Minimize this window on your desktop. Activate your PSP. When you are ready to use your font it will be in your text dropdown menu.

Another folder you will want to create is one called Selections. As you start doing tutorials, you will find several that use selections. Selections are premade shapes that the tutorial writer has made to help you create an image, without you having to use vectors. The tutorial writer will advise you to download the selections zip file and to unzip into your selections folder. My advice is to create a new folder, in your selections folder, for each selection tutorial that you do. Again, it comes down to organization and making it easier for you to find the selections when doing the tutorial.

Now that we have all of our tubes and extra goodies in folders outside of PSP, how is PSP going to find them? If you go to Files-->Preferences you will see a number of items that you can customize to your liking.

I would leave the majority of these as they are, until you become more familiar with the program. However, there are a few that I changed right away. Remember, this is what I changed. It doesn't mean that you need to do the same.

Let's start with General Program Preferences. Below is the dialog box that will open.

If you don't like the Splash Screen to appear each time you open PS, click the Miscellaneous tab. Uncheck Show Splash screen when application starts. I also changed the Recently used file list from 4 to 10.

File Format Associations ~~ If you want PSP to open a certain picture file type in PSP, then check it. I personally selected all.

File Locations ~~ This is where all of those folders you set up come into play. *smiles* This is the dialog box when you click on File Locations in Preferences.

The first line will be the path to your PSP program folder. The next two lines will be blank. Click on the Browse button on the first blank line. Navigate to where your folder is. Click the OK button to close the box and it will now show you the path to your new folder. Check the Enable this path to make it active in the program. If you have subfolders, check that box. You can check the Save to path if you want to make the path become the default path for saving files. You can only have one Save to path checked in each tab.

Click each tab and set the path for each of your folders. When you are finished and click OK, PSP will then create a cache for all of your tubes, gradients, frames, etc.

Autosave Settings ~ In my tutorials, I stress to save often. It is also advisable to enable Autosave.

Enter how often, in minutes, you want your PSP to Autosave. Autosave creates a temporary file for each open image. This is wonderful if your site or program crashes. The next time you open PSP, after a crash, PSP will load those files. Even if you enable Autosave, you should still save your work often.

In the year that I have had PSP I have never changed the settings in CMYK Conversion Preferences, Color Management or Monitor Gamma.

I didn't cover everything for the beginner in this tutorial. So here are some of the more common questions that do come up.

Q. I tried to open a selection to look at it and all I can see is garbage? Why can't I see the selection?

A. Selections have to be loaded from disk on an image in PSP. To make your creation look like the tutorial, you must use the identical image size that the selections were originally made. You can see the selection by going to Selection-->Load From Disk and navigate to your selections folder.

Q. I downloaded a lot of tubes and unzipped them in my tubes folder. I can see them in my browser but not when I use the picture tube tool. What is wrong?

A. Picture tubes created in an earlier version of PSP need to be converted. You can use the Picture Tube converter, which can be run by selecting Start-->Programs-->Jasc Software-->Utilities-->Picture Tube Convertor. You can also bring up the tube file in PSP and go to Files-->Export-->Picture Tubes.

Q. When using the Cutout effect and a tutorial calls for a 21.7 blur, my decimal point doesn't work. It works in the Drop Shadow. Do I need to repair my PSP?

A. To use the decimal point in the Cutout Effect, click on the slider and use your right arrow or left arrow to move it. You can then have a 21.7 blur.

Q. Why, after doing a lot of work in PSP (such as copying and pasting), does my PSP slow down?

A. You probably need to empty your clipboard. To do this go to Edit-->Empty-->Clipboard.

Q. My font size only goes to 72. The tutorial says to use font size 125, how do I do this?

A. Hilite the size box and enter the number that you want your font size to be. See the screenshot below.

Q. Where can I find some really good beginners tutorials.

A. PSP Imaginarium would be an excellent starting point for you as a Beginner. They have beginners classes and tutorials. If there is a session that is getting ready to start, you should register for it. They have a great staff and you will receive one on one help in a Study Group. You can also do their beginners tutorials when classes are not in session.

Please check out my tips and tricks page HERE for some additional things that may help you out.

I hope that the information in this tutorial has been helpful to you as a beginner and that your adventure in PSP is a fruitful and pleasant one. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me. Just click on my mailbox below.