Inspiration Tag

To make this tag, you will need scrap papers, a photo frame, 2 photos or other images, Paint Shop Pro (I use 9.01, but I’m sure it’ll work in most versions).
Open and minimize your supplies.

Open a new image 400x400, white background. Copy the notepaper, paste on your image. If you wish to mask it, do so. I chose not to.
Add a new layer. Take your selection tool and draw out a rectangle somewhere in the middle of the image. Fill the rectangle with one of the scrap papers. Deselect.
Repeat this to get another rectangle. (See my tag for guidance)
Apply a drop shadow of your choice to the rectangles.

Now take your first image and your photo frame. Fit the frame to the photo and merge. Copy and paste on to your image. Resize to your liking.
Repeat with your second picture and resize and rotate to your liking.
Add the same drop shadow as before to the photos.

Apply some nice brushes to your tag. If you want the brushes to stand out more, you can add a slight drop shadow to them.

Either with your text tool or with a nice brush, add a saying or something like that to your tag. Add a drop shadow to it.
Back to your text tool. Apply your name on the tag and add a drop shadow to it as well.

Don’t forget to put proper credits to your tag. Hide the white bg and crop it to get rid of excess space. Unhide the white bg and save as .jpg.
That’s it!

***

I made an animated version of this tag, too.
It’s a bit more complicated, but follow me and I’ll try to explain the procedure.

When you have done everything except the saying, hit ctrl+shift+c (copy merged) and paste the image in Animation Shop.
Open your animated image that you want to use. Try to choose one with not too many frames! Mark all and export to PSP.

In PSP, add the photo frame to your animation. You will need to copy the frame several times and merge each layer separately. It’s very time consuming, but worth the time.
When you have all the layers of the animation with a frame, close the animation. You will be asked to save the animation, click no, the you will be asked to update back to AS, click yes.

Back in AS, you now have the updated animation. You will need to resize the animation if it is a big one, so it fits your tag.

Now copy your tag until you have equal amount of frames of it as your animation has.
Mark the propagate paste-button. Highlight all frames of both your tag and of your animation.
Drag the first image of your animation onto the first image of your tag, to where you want to place it. Wait for it – and there you have the animation pasted into your tag!

If you want a saying or other stuff added to the tag, that floats onto the animation, then just copy them from PSP, and paste them onto the tag.

Not very hard, but you may need to practice a few times.

Here’s how my animated tag turned out.

A Love Story

This tag is made in Paint Shop Pro 9, but will probably work in any version
It is my own idea, and any resemblance to other tuts is purely coincidental.
To make this tag you need the B/W scrap kit from Pipmp’d Designz here and my supplies.
Please read my and their TOU before you start.
You will also need EyeCandy 4000 – Gradient Glow.

Open all your supplies and minimize.
Open a new image 500x500, white background.
Open the frame and with you magic wand, select the shadows of the frame. Delete them. Deselect. Resize 75% using smartsize and copy the frame to your image.

Duplicate the frame and hide the upper frame.
With your magic wand, select the three frames inside, expand selection by 2.
Copy the supplied pictures to your image and position them inside the selections. Invert selection, delete excess.
Hide your background layer and merge visible. Unhide background layer and hide the merged layer.

Unhide your upper frame. Repeat the same procedure with this frame and the rest of the supplied pictures.
Unhide your lower layer. Rotate the lower frame layer 5 degrees to the right. And the upper frame layer 5 degrees to the left.

Copy the branch element to the tag. Resize to preferred size. Position it as you like, you may need to erase parts of the branch. Do the same with the other elements you chose.

Add the brushtext as a new layer above your background.
Apply a nice mask to this layer, merge group.

Open your text tool. Write The Twilight Saga with the font Zephyr, colour 404040 and 30pts.
Center the text and convert to raster layer. Again with the same font and colour, but with size 16 pts, type – a love story. Convert this layer to raster and position it to the first textlayer as shown in my tag. Merge the two layers.
Apply Gradient glow in white to the text layer. Use a setting you like.

Repeat these steps to apply your name to the tag, but swap the colours.

Apply a drop shadow to each of your layers – 1,1,30,4, black to all the elements, and 2,2,50, 5, black to the frames and those you typed.

When the tag is finished, hide your background layer and crop the tag to get rid of excess space. Unhide the background layer and save as JPG.

Don’t forget to add credits and watermark to your tag.

Wolf Shaped

To make this tutorial look like my tag, you will need the scrapset, the tube, font and the photo, Paint Shop Pro (I use 9.01, but I’m sure it’ll work in most versions) and Eye Candy 4000.
Open and minimize your supplies. Install your plug-in if you don’t already have it. You will need to close down PSP while you install, or it will not work.
The scrapset I used for this tutorial is a FTU kit, made by Urban Fairytales and you can find it here. Please do not share the scrapset further, but instead share the link to UF, so that more people can enjoy their wonderful work! Please read my and their TOU before you start.



This tutorial is strictly a text tutorial, so you may need to go back and look at the finished tag now and then. I made this tag and wrote this tut on April 23rd, 2009. Any similarity to other tags and tuts are purely coincidental.
Let’s begin!



Open a new image, 500x500 pixels, white background.
Copy your photo and paste as new layer.
Highlight your background, select all.



Contract selection by 125 pixels. Move the photo around until you have the part of it you want to use inside the selection, invert selection. Make sure your photo layer is highlighted and hit delete. De-select.
With your photo layer still active, select all-float selection-defloat. Add a new layer. Choose two colours for your frame, fill your colours with the first, contract selection by 5, fill with the other colour, contract by 2, fill again with the first colour, contract by 3. Delete. De-select. Now you have a frame.



Open your tube of Jacob. Resize it by 21% smart size. Copy the tube and paste as new layer. Resize the tube again, this time by 40%. Place it where you want it on the tag.



Copy one of the wolf tubes and paste as new layer. Place it in between your photo and your Jacob-tube. Duplicate and merge the duplicated layer into the original layer.



Close out your background layer and merge visible. Open your layers again. Add a drop shadow to the photo layer. I used V2-H2-opacity 60-blur 5-colour black.



Copy the map and paste as new layer. Move to just above your background.



Copy one of the text tubes. Place it above your map layer and position it where you like. Add a drop shadow of V1-H1-opacity 30-blur 5-colour black.



Copy the butterflies tube add as new layer. Resize it 25% and position it. Add the same shadow as the text layer.



Time to add names. Open your font file -Almagro Regular - and minimize it. With your text tool set to vector, antialias to sharp and size to 20, type in the name Jacob Black. Convert to raster file. Rotate the layer 90 degrees left and position it.



Go to Effects-Plugins-Eye Candy 4000-Gradient Glow. Pick a light colour and set it to width 5/corners 25/opacity 100. Place a second colour box above the dropper tool and set the transition dot there too.
Add a drop shadow of V2-H2-opacity 60-blur 5-colour black.



Do the same with your name, except for the rotation part. Add the same shadow as before.
Add watermark and copyright info. Close out your background and crop using the merged opaque. Save as .jpg. Your tag is done!



I hope you enjoyed this tutorial.