VECTOR APPLE

Created July 3, 2003 © 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 is written in and for PSP8 and assumes you have a working knowledge of PSP at an intermediate level.

YOU WILL NEED:
JASC's PSP8 (30 day free trial) - You can get it HERE

I was inspired to do this tutorial after someone had seen one from Kentucky Creations, written in PSP7, and requested that I do a tutorial for PSP8. Although I did use some of Kentucky Creations guidelines, this is a totally different tutorial. If you are using PSP7 I would suggest that you try her tutorial out, you can find it HERE.

Working with vectors in PSP8 is different than in PSP7. All editing of vector nodes is done with the new Pen tool. You can create vector shapes using Preset Shapes or the Pen and then go into the Pen to edit those shapes. We will also be using the smudge brush, lighten/darken brush, lock transparency in the layer palette, and the new Mesh Warp tool.

No two apples are going to turn out the same. Your apple most likely won't look exactly like mine and if you make more than one apple they will also be different. Many things will contribute to this; the size of your shape, the arranging of the nodes, and the shading are only a few of the things that will make a difference. Remember, my tutorials are only guidelines to help you accomplish a certain creation. Please feel free to be inventive and take whatever liberties you would like. I encourage each of you to do your "own thing" and make your creation yours!

Screenshots are resized and compressed for faster loading. Make sure you SAVE often. There are also 3 flash video movies for showing you how I did the vectors for the apple, stem, and leaf.

I recommend that you read the entire tutorial prior to doing it as I have a lot of tips and why I have chosen some of the methods that I use.

Step 1:
Create a new image 300x300 pixels, white background. The reason I am having a white background is so it is easier for you to view your creation.

Set your foreground to transparent, and your background to a dark red. I used #8A2222.

Step 2:
Activate your preset shapes, . On your tool option palette choose ellipse, antialias checked, and create as vector checked.

Draw out your Ellipse, or you can create it as a circle by holding down your shift key while drawing.

Step 3:
Activate your pen tool, , because we are working with a pre-drawn vector shape, your tool options palette will automatically be set to the edit mode.

We want to add two nodes to our shape, one on each side of the bottom node, we do this by holding down the Ctrl key and placing our mouse over the outline until you see the word "Add" and then click on your mouse. See the screenshot below as to where I added my nodes.

Double click on a node to select all of them, or use Ctrl+A for a keyboard shortcut. While on one of the nodes, right click and select Node Type and Asymmetric*. Click on any blank area of your canvas to deselect your nodes. Right click on your top node, Node Type, Cusp**.

*Asymmetric gives you a different amount of curve on each side of the node, but will still keep a smooth flow. You can adjust the length of each control arm, but not the direction.

** Cusp gives your extreme changes in direction. You can adjust the length and direction of each control arm separately.

On your cusp node, pull down the middle and bring the ends up just a little.

I then clicked on the side, middle nodes individually, brought them up and shaped them. Click on each of the bottom two side nodes, individually, and shape them. Keep maneuvering until you have something like this.

TO VIEW A 2 MINUTE VIDEO ON CREATING YOUR APPLE PLEASE CLICK HERE

Step 4:
When you are satisfied with your apple shape, go to your layer palette, right click on your vector1 layer and convert to raster. Rename your layer "apple". If you haven't saved your image in .pspimage format yet, I would advise you to do so now!

Step 5:
We are now going to save our apple shape to an selection alpha channel. One reason for doing this is so if we mess up really bad, we can load the apple selection from the alpha channel and won't have to redraw our apple. We are also going to be accessing this later in the tutorial. Activate your Magic Wand, it's in the selections flyout on your tools palette.

Click on a blank area of your canvas. You will have marching ants around the outside of your canvas and also around your apple shape.

Go to Selections-->Invert and your marching ants will be around the apple only. Go to Selections-->Load/Save Selection-->Save to Alpha Channel. Accept the defaults and click Save. Do NOT check Move to upper left of canvas.

Step 6:
We are now going to paint our apple. Go to Layers-->Duplicate and rename your layer "contour". Change your foreground to a lighter red, I used #E32727. Activate your Paint tool, . On your tool options palette use the round brush, size 12, hardness 50, step 25, density and opacity 100, blend mode normal and I checked the Wet Look Paint. You don't have to check that if you don't want to.

We only want to paint on the apple, not on areas of your canvas outside of the apple. Go to your layer palette and on your apple layer click on the far right lock to lock your transparency, it will turn from a gray color to a blue color.

Paint some curved lines on the top of your apple and a few on the bottom left side. They certainly do not have to be perfect. This is how I painted mine.

We now want to blend this to give our apple some shape. We will use the Smudge brush. You can find the smudge brush in the flyout that is next to, or under, your clone tool.

On your tool options palette chose the following settings. Round shape, size 30, hardness 50, step 1, opacity and thickness 100, and I lowered my opacity to 52.

Smudge around your painted curves until you get something like this.

Step 7:
We are now going to give our apple some shading. Duplicate your contour layer, rename it "shading". Change your foreground color to a dark reddish-brown. I used #412D2D. Activate your paint tool, increase the brush size to 20 and add some shading around your apple. See the screenshot below as an example.

After you have your shading painted in, activate your smudge brush and soften and blend the painted areas.

It's starting to take shape isn't it? Apples have a bit of a speckled texture so we're going to add some speckling, using the Airbrush in the next step.

Step 8:
Duplicate your shading layer and name it "speckles". Change your foreground color to a mustard color, I used B2B152. Activate your Airbrush tool. You'll find it in the flyout where your paintbrush is.

On your tool options palette use the following settings; Round Brush, Size 206, Hardness 100, Step 25, Density 1, Thickness and Opacity 100, Blend Mode Normal, Rate 5.

Click once or twice on your image.

Go to Adjust-->Blur-->Gaussian Blur and use a setting of about 1.25.

Your apple is really starting to take shape now isn't it? Now would be a good time to save if you haven't done so yet.

Step 9:
We are now going to merge these layers and have one apple layer. Go to your layer palette and hide the background layer by click on the eye. You will see a red X over the eye. Go to Layers-->Merge-->Merge Visible. Rename your layer apple.

Step 10:
Make sure you are on your apple layer and let's give our apple a little shine. In the flyout under your smudge tool you will find the lighten/darken tool. Activate this tool now.

Lighten the left side of your apple.

Go to layers-->add raster layer and set the blend mode to multiply. Change your foreground color to a pale yellow, I used FBFAA5. Go to Selections-->Load/Save-->Load from Alpha Channel. Click OK. Activate your paint brush and paint around the highlited area.

When you are satisfied, deselect (Ctrl+D). We want to merge these two layers. Go to Layers-->Merge-->Merge Down. Rename your layer apple.

Step 11:
Does your apple have a few jaggies around the edges? I know that mine did, and here is where we are going to fix them. While on your apple layer, go to selections-->select all (Ctrl+A), selections-->float (Ctrl+F), selections-->invert. You may get this Auto Action message stating that you need to defloat first before proceeding with your invert selection action. You can either click OK or check "Always take these actions" so you won't get the message again.

Go to Selections-->Modify-->Feather. I used a feather of 2. Click OK. Click on your delete key about 4 or 5 times and you won't have the jaggies anymore. It sure looks much cleaner doesn't it?

Step 12:
Now it's time to add a stem and a leaf. Activate your background layer. Change your foreground color to a dark brown, I used #6C4040, and your background to transparent. Activate your pen tool. Set the tool options palette to create as vector, drawing mode, and point to point. Set your line width to about 7.

Click on the upper middle of your apple and release. Go up and to the left a tad and click for your next point. Right click on your top node, select edit node-->symmetric and curve the stem slightly to the left.

TO VIEW A 45 SECOND VIDEO ON CREATING YOUR STEM, PLEASE CLICK HERE

Convert the vector layer to raster and rename it stem. Activate your mover tool and move your stem into place where it looks good to you.

Step 13:
Activate your apple layer. Change your background color to a medium-dark green and your foreground transparent. I used #307230. Activate your preset shapes tool, using the same settings as earlier - they shouldn't have changed. Draw out a small oval on your apple for your leaf.

Activate your pen tool, it will be in the edit mode. Click on the far right node and move the handles inward and up towards the stem to create a point. Arrange the remaining nodes as needed to create your leaf.

There were several times that I just deleted the leaf and started over again, so please don't feel bad if you need to do this. When you are satisfied with your leaf, covert your vector layer to raster layer and rename if leaf. Lock in the transparency of your leaf layer. Activate your lighten/darken tool, I reduced the transparency to about 75. Alternately use your left and right mouse to blend the light and dark colors to your liking. Activate your smudge tool and do a little more blending if you like.

TO VIEW A 45 SECOND VIDEO ON CREATING YOUR LEAF, PLEASE CLICK HERE

Step 14:
Go to your layer palette and drag your leaf layer below your stem layer. Activate your apple layer and using the lighten/darken tool, right click to darken the top of your apple to give it a little more shading where the leaf falls over the top of your apple.

Are we having fun yet? We're almost done, in fact if you are happy with your apple, you ARE done. ~winks~ What if you were like me, and wasn't really happy with the shape of your apple, the stem and leaf were okay, but the shape? Well there was a lot to be desired on my end, at least I didn't care for mine that much. I thought my apple was to long and narrow and just didn't care that much for the shape. However, it was easily fixed by using the new Mesh Warp that you can find in your Deform Tool flyout.

Activate your apple layer. Activate your Mesh Warp. I changed the horizontal and vertical boxes to 6 and moved things around to my liking.

To apply your Mesh Warp either click the check mark on your Tool Options Palette or double click on your image. To get out of the tool, that is to remove the mesh, click on any other tool such as the pan tool or the mover tool.

I hope to have more tutorials on using the mesh warp tool in the future, this was to show you what you can do with a layer and moving the grids around. The mesh warp tool is FUN!

Okay, now that we have our apple just the way we want it, you may need to use the mover tool to resituate your stem and leaf. When everything is to your liking, go to your layer palette and hide your background layer (like you did earlier) and merge the remaining layers visible. If you want to display your apple, activate your background layer and change your pattern, color or whatever and add a border and bevel. The choice is yours.

If you would like to tube apple, then delete your background layer and crop your apple. The reason you would want to crop your apple is because there is a lot of transparency around the apple that you won't want when you apply the tube. Activate your crop tool, , and draw a rectangle around your apple.

Double click and the excess transparencies is cropped out. Go to File-->Export-->Picture Tube. You will get this dialog window, add your name to the tube and click okay.

I sure hope you have enjoyed this tutorial as much as I have creating it for you. If you have any problems, comments or questions please do not hesitate to E-mail me.

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Tutorial written and created by Patti Wavinak for Moon's Designs. These Tutorials are copyrighted by law. You may LINK to them only. You may not remove any of the graphics, zip files or html within these pages to reproduce these Tutorials, without the expressed permission of Moon's Designs. These pages may not be removed from this website and sent via e-mail, nor saved, stored or archived in files in YahooGroups or other mailing list sites, nor may they be translated and placed on another site.
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