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| Paint Shop Pro - Tools of the Trade |
This tutorial focuses on Paint Shop Pro 5 by JASC. It's my program of choice for painting cars, and is generally the most widely used by others as well. It's simpler than Photoshop or CorelDraw, and it's also a LOT cheaper. If you're using Paint Shop Pro 6, don't worry too much. Versions 5 and 6 are VERY similar. Where there are differences, I will try to note them and include info for Paint Shop Pro 6 users as well.
I like version 5 better for one basic reason… the text tool. JASC went to a Photoshop-style text tool with PSP6, and even though it's better for laying out flyers or Christmas cards or whatever, it SUCKS for painting cars as far as I'm concerned. With the PSP5 text tool, you can enter the text you want, then highlight the font list and scroll through all your fonts. The preview window automatically displays what the text will look like in each font as you scroll through the list. This is great for when you're trying to find a specific font for a number or logo. With PSP6, you have to highlight the text below, then click on the font in the list, and then it will change it. You can't just scroll. That's basically my only complaint about PSP6, but it's enough of a pain to keep me from using it much.
Ok, I'm done griping, let's get you familiarized with the tools in Paint Shop Pro and what they do. ;)
I try to maximize my workspace as much as possible, CLICK HERE to see how I lay things out. This gives me the most workspace without overlapping anything. This is at 1280x1024 resolution, but a similar layout should work for you. I strongly suggest editing at 1024x768 or higher if your video card and monitor will allow it, but it isn't absolutely necessary.
Here's the toolbar. Mine is located on the left hand side of the screen and goes up and down. You can grab the bar and move it to wherever you want on the screen. You can do that with the color picker, main toolbar, tool controls window, and layer options window as well. Just arrange things however is comfortable for you.
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TOOL FUNCTION DESCRIPTION |
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This little arrow guy is hardly every intentionally used. This is the default tool if you don't have any other selected. It lets you move a selected object, that's about it. ;) |
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This is the zoom tool. Pretty self-explanatory. You can also zoom with the wheel on a wheel mouse, if you have one. |
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This next guy is handier than all get out. This is the deformation tool. I'll talk more about this later. |
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This weird-looking thing is the crop tool. You won't be using this for painting, I'll let you check the help files to find out how this works. ;) |
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This crossed-arrows lookin' guy is the Layer Move tool. It lets you move all the contents of one layer independently from the other layers. |
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The dotted-border box is the Selection Shape Tool. Use this to create a selection area in the shape of a circle, square, rectangle, or ellipse (PSP6 has some additional cool shapes). |
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This guy is what he looks like, a Lasso tool. You can use this tool to make abstract-shaped selection areas. There are several options on this one, we'll get into those if necessary. As always, feel free to experiment. |
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This is the Magic Wand Tool. I don't use it much, but you might. Basically it selects an area that is similarly colored to the point where you click it. |
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This turkey-baster-lookin' doohickey is the dropper tool. It snags colors off an image and makes it your active foreground ot background color. (Right-clicking will make it your background color) |
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Paintbrush Tool - Pretty simple, use it to paint. There are different brush sizes… nothin' too spectacular. ;) |
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Clone Brush Tool - This is a cool tool that I rarely have need of. It will take a certain area of an image and repaint an exact copy somewhere else or on another image. |
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Retouch Tool - I don't use this much either, It's like a paintbrush that allows you to smudge, soften, lighten, or darken things. |
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Eraser Tool - Ummm, if you've used a pencil, you know what this does. ;) |
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Picture Tube - Ignore this one… LOL |
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Spray Can Tool - This one's kinda cool, but I have yet to get much use out of it. |
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Paint Bucket/Fill Tool - Use this guy to fill your image or selected area with a color or gradient of some sort. This tool gets constant use. ;) |
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Text Tool - I use this for numbers and text logos, you will too after you're done with this tutorial. |
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Line Tool - Pretty simple. You can also do bezier (curved) lines with this, but it's a pain! |
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Shape Tool - Ahh, this one gets some use. Makes various shapes that can be made outlined or filled. |
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Hold on, lemme catch my breath…
Ok. Hehe. Sorry 'bout that. Here's a little tip for ya. With any tools that involve creating a colored object (i.e. - paintbrush, shape tool, text tool, etc.) left-clicking uses the foreground color, and right-clicking uses the background color. Kinda cool. Huh?
Now you know what buttons correspond to what tools. If you forget, just hold your cursor over a tool button and a pop-up will tell you what it is. ;)
Alright. Before we get to the nitty gritty, I want to talk to you in general about the parts that make up a car… Click Here to go to the next lesson.
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