Create an Avatar

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In this tutorial, we will be making a basic Av, using Paint Shop Pro 7. Save the two images below somewhere on your computer to easy access:

 

Open up PSP, and go to File/Browse and find where you saved the image of the woman. Once you have brung that image up, and increase colors to 16 million (Colors/Increase Color Depth/16 Million Colors[24 Bit]). Then go to Edit/Copy. Now go back to File/Browse and find where you saved the background and increase the colors to 16 million as well. Then go to Edit/Paste/Paste As New Layer, this will automatically bring the girl image back overtop of the background. Now go to the eraser found in your paint menu, it will look like this:

Right click on the eraser and then go to tool options and change your settings to look like this:

Now go around the image of the woman and right click, tapping around the woman to reveal the background underneath. You may even erase a little into the woman, mine ended up looking like this:

Then go to Layers/Merge/Merge All(Flatten). Now basically you are done, aside from the fact of adding your text. But before we go on to add the text, I ask that if you do not know anything about Raster Layers and Vector Layers, to please go back and read up on each tutorial. This is not necessary to finish an av, but once you have learned about raster and vector layers, there are much more freedom to do different things to your av. Also, when we add the text to this av, we are going to work with raster layers.

Adding Text

Go to Layers/New Raster Layer, then click Ok. Then go over to the paint menu and click on the Text tool, it will look like this:

Left click on the image anywhere, and browse to find a font of your choice, I am using Arial and my settings looked like this:

Click here to see a full size screenshot version!

Then click Ok. Now your text is floating and you will be able to place your cursor on the text to move it around where you would like. ~Keep in mind that you can do alot to text when it is on a raster layer, you can go to Image/Rotate and move your text around like that. For now, I am going to leave my text stayed at a horizontal position, but I am going to add a black dropshadow to it. To do this go to Effects/3d Effects/Drop Shadow. You can play with your settings. My setting looked like this:

Then click on OK. Then go to Layers/Merge/Merge All(Flatten). My av ended up looking like this:

Using Psp Stock Filter
When we used the drop shadow, we were using psp stock filters. There are alot of stock filters to enhance your av's look. I suggest that you play with some of them and see what you like best. To show you what great things that these filters can do, I will show you different examples of this av.
1. Go to Effects/Enhance Photo/Automatic Color Balance Play with your settings, but mine looked like this:

2. Go to Effects/Enchance Photo/Automatic Contrast Enhancement Again, you can play with your settings but mine looked like this:

3. Another setting to play with, go to Colors/Adjust/Brightness-Contrast and play with the settings in there, mine looked like this:

All in all, don't be afraid to play around with different settings in your Psp 7, you may just stumble on something you like! Also, don't forget to play around with your preset shapes set on vector, and brushes and tubes are fun too!