Module 3 - "For The Long Haul" (advanced)

• Lesson 1 - Getting Started with Filters, Special Effects, and Blade Pro!

Note: This lesson moves very quickly and is for advanced users of Paint Shop Pro. It's geared more to give you a quick "overall" feel for Paint Shop Pro and Blade Pro. If you feel your skillsets aren't quite ready, use the QuickNav to go back to the Beginner's Module of our Paint Shop Pro Workshop and work your way back here!

"Picture This!"

You're racing down the Information Highway, clocking speeds in excess of eleventy-jillion megs an hour. Your machine is cruising at its usual 7200rpm, and you're churning out graphics for web like there's no tomorrow. Every now and then you take a quick trip out to the web to glance at the latest, coolest graphics. While cruising along at this blinding speed, you suddenly hit....A WALL. This is no ordinary cyberspace wall! This wall....well...it LOOKS like a wall! Worse yet, it looks so much like a wall, that you think you can actually FEEL the cement it's made of!

Just as you reach out to touch the "wall", you're quickly snapped back to graphical reality, when you realize that "wall" feels alot like your monitor screen. But, how did they do that? It LOOKS SO REAL!

"The Real Building Blocks"

Sure.... You can sit and "draw" an image pixel by pixel until you get just the right effect for your brick. And 2 hours later, you might have ONE brick done! But, look at that image again. Every brick is different! Do you REALLY want to sit and do that for hours? Of course not!  Not when you've got an entire guardrail along the Information Super Highway to build! So, what do you do? Do like The KROW and apply a special effects filters! The KROW did this wall in less than 30 seconds.....literally! Best part about this is, it's so easy to do! Your Paint Shop Pro comes loaded with all sorts of great filters. Add to those, the incredible effects of Blade Pro Surface and Texture Generator, and you've got yourself all the "building blocks" you need to create any texture there is!

COOL KROW CLUE
The possibilities are endless when it comes to filters. Make it a habit to check the web for new filters which work for you. Easy way is simply do a search on the web for "Blade Pro PreSets".

Click here to download the demo of Blade Pro now. To complete this Module, you'll need it loaded into your Paint Shop Pro. It won't be long before you'll find yourself hooked on this little program. And when you do, you can purchase it at a very nominal cost right from their web site. Once you've installed Blade Pro, simply follow the instruction in your PSP Guide Book on how to "plug in" the new Filters.

Now, click here to download the zip file containing all the filters featured here in this part of our Workshop! After unzipping, move all the files to your Blade Pro "environments and textures folders". This zip also contains the native .psp file with all the images for you to compare and work with (sort of an "ok-to-use" cheat-sheet!). This file doesn't need to be in your Blade Pro texture folder.

"But Teacher!! Do I GOTTA Do It That Way?"

By this time you're probably wondering why "Blade Pro"? There are tons of other filtering programs out there! Ah! The million-dollar question (and if you run your business right, it very well could be worth the million dollar answer too!).

First off, there most certainly are many other filtering programs. But, search around a while, and you'll soon find yourself lost in yet another sea of "add ons", which still cannot achieve the intense texturizing which Blade Pro does! Also, since Blade Pro filtering system reads from bitmaps (rather than object oriented files), it's perfect for Paint Shop Pro! (Don't you just love a "happy couple"!) Paint Shop Pro and Blade work hand-in-hand together, so you can apply filters from your Paint Shop Pro, then turn right around and apply a Blade Pro filter right on top of the same image!

COOL KROW CLUE
Click here for a quick refresher about the filters which already come loaded in your Paint Shop Program.

"He's BAAAAACK!"

Yup! Remember good ol' "Mr. I.M. Bigexec"? (click here to brush up on his dossier). Well, he's at it again (he has one of those "haunting" personalities. What a guy!) It seems he too has been speeding along the ol' Info Highway and is now determined to sell his products on the web. And just what is it he's commissioned YOU to do? Create actual images of his products, of course! He said he wants his customers to get a real "feel" for what he's selling.

Since by now, you've learned that your Paint Shop Pro has this slick little tool for scanning images right into it, you ask Mr. Bigexec to just get you photos of his products and you'll take it from there. After further conversation with Mr. Bigexec, you find out he doesn't have any photos of his products and that's why he needs you to make them from scratch (further research indicates this is because Mr. Bigexec also happens to be the CFO. He thought it was a big expense when he spent $6.99 on a "Dispose-a-Cam", and then didn't know why his photos looked "fuzzy").

OK, now knowing what you're up against, here's a list of the products he wants to sell.....ones which YOU must make graphics of:

• Old Fashioned Solid Chrome Dome-styled Hubcaps
• Two types of Ladies' Handbags (one pearl studded, and one made of exotic green lizard skin)
• Ladies' Ruby Red Lipstick in Black Lacquer Case with Gold Trim
• Stack of Construction Worker's Diamond-plates

Since you're not one to pry too much into where Mr. Bigexec gets his "products" from, you set out to get his graphics produced.

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