Advent Alpha 24

Ok, here are some sparkly gems to celebrate the end of this year's advent calendar. 

Advent Alpha 24

An old alpha for the Advent Calendar

I think that 4shared has been deleting my files because I'll go to my account and look for a tagger-sized alpha that I made and it won't be there.  Anyways, I liked the suggestion for a snowman alpha, but I don't have time to make one.  So, I'm going to offer up this tagger-sized alpha that I made three years ago.  It is small.  The images are only 0.5 inches in size, but it is 300 dpi, so it is possible to print them.  It uses a tube that I got through a sharing group.

Get the tagger-sized alpha: Snowmen.  And if you want it without the drop shadow, I also have it in gif format.  Yes, it is really old!

Advent Alpha 22

Sorry the day is half over before I could post today's alpha.  I'm really busy with holiday preparations.  I didn't really like this bow alpha, but I don't have time to make something better.  Since I was criticized for making different colors, this one just comes in silver.  You will have to recolor the ugly letters yourself.  The zip is available via Skydrive because 4shared is currently down for maintenance.

Advent Alpha 22

Advent Alpha 21

Taking a suggestion, I tried my hand at making an ice alpha.

Advent Alpha 21

Advent Alpha 20

Here is the last minty Mickey Head alpha.  It is sort of cute.  It is also sort of big because of all the glitter.  I don't think I'll be making a green version.

Advent Alpha 20

Starburst Pattern Paper

This tutorial will show you how to make a paper with a starburst pattern in Paint Shop Pro.

1.  Open up a new canvas.  Mine is 3600 x 3600 at 300 dpi for a full size paper.

2.  Fill the canvas with a color using the Fill Bucket.

3.  Create a new layer (Layers > New Raster Layer).

4.  Use the custom selection tool to create a 3600 x 200 selection in the center of on the new layer.

Left = 1600
Right = 1800
Top = 0
Bottom = 3600

5.  Fill the selection with a contrasting color.

6.  Ctrl + D to select none.

7.  Use the Pattern effect (Effects > Reflection Effects > Pattern) to create vertical stripes.  Create as many stripes as desired.  I chose 9 stripes.

Horizontal offset = 0
Vertical offset = 0
Rotation angle = 0
Scale factor = 1
Number of columns = 9
Number of rows = 3
Horizontal shift = 0
Vertical shift = 0

8.  Finish by using the Polar Coordinates deformation (Effects > Distortion Effects > Polar Coordinates) to create the starburst.

Rectangle to polar = Checked
Edge mode = Wrap

Advent Alpha 19

Here are some more minty Mickey heads because I tried a few different variations.

Advent Alpha 19

Advent Alpha 18

These Mickey letters looked really cute individually.  I'm not sure they look good en masse.

Advent Alpha 18

Advent Alpha 17

Here is a second neon alpha because I happened to like the color.

Advent Alpha 17

Advent Alpha 16

As you can see, I'm running out of good ideas.  This always happens during my attempt to make 24 alphas.  The ones in the middle are never very good.  Please feel free to make some suggestions.

Advent Alpha 16

Advent Alpha 15

Here are some poinsettias for Day 15. 

Advent Alpha 15

Advent Alpha 14

Here is the lower case for yesterday's alpha.

Advent Alpha 14

Advent Alpha 13

This is another alpha that I played around with last year, but didn't end up sharing it.  You can get the lower case for this alpha tomorrow.

Advent Alpha 13

Advent Alpha 12

Here is something a little different, but still festive.  I was thinking people might be able to use it for New Year's celebrations.

Advent Alpha 12

Advent Alpha 11

I don't know if anyone has noticed, given how few visitors I have, but direct links have been enabled for today's download.  I don't know if I'm going to convert my older links to direct download as it seems like a lot of work.

Advent Alpha 11

Advent Alpha 10

A nice person wrote in and asked for the plain gold letters from my wire bead alphas.  As the wire bead alphas are from when I started posting scrap alphas, they are a bit smaller than my current alphas at only 1 inch tall for the capital letters.  I hope that other people, besides the requestor, will be able to use them.

Advent Alpha 10

Advent Alpha 9

Here is the third day of bead alphas.  I hope I can come up with some idea for tomorrow.  I didn't really like the colors for the beads once I made the previews, but I'm too tired to go back and re-do them.

Advent Alpha 9

Advent Alpha 8

This is the second of three days of bead alphas because I'm super busy with work.  As a result, I'm exhausted and not feeling very creative.

Advent Alpha 8

Advent Alpha 7

The download links are available available as text.  I do not link my images because then people just grab and go.  I get very few comments, so I think it is fair to ask for a little bit of reading.  Or, perhaps people just think all of my alphas are hideously ugly and that's why I see mostly complaints in the comments.

Advent Alpha 7

Advent Alpha 6

Advent Alpha 6

Advent Alpha 5

I came up with the concept for this alpha two years ago, when I started giving away alphas during advent.  However, I didn't like the previous versions that I made.  I think this version is slightly better than previous versions.

Advent Alpha 5

Advent Alpha 4

Here is the lowercase for yesterday's alpha.

Advent Alpha 4

Advent Alpha 3

Uppercase is available today. Lowercase will be available tomorrow.

Advent Alpha 3

Advent Alpha 2

Advent Alpha 2

Advent Alpha 1

Once again I am giving away an alpha a day for Advent.  This will be my third year.  To see all of the alphas for this year and last year search my blog using the advent calendar label.

Advent Alpha 1

Square Overlays 2

Here is a second set of square overlays which can be used in layers or alone for making patterned papers.

Overlays

Rolled Cylinder

I made an effect for Filter Forge.  I made it because lots of people complain that Mura Meister's filters do not work with newer versions of PSP or their OS.  So, if you have Filter Forge, you now have a semi-substitute for Stripe of Cylinder and you can now make the rolled paper preview.  I can only do 2 angles, 0 degrees and 90 degrees, but if you have any suggestions for improvements to the filter, feel free to leave a comment.  You can get the filter at the Filter Forge library.

Filter

Trimming Extra Space from Images

Today I saw a script that would let you trim excess space from PNGs. It was selling for $4.  If you want to remove extra space from around your images, this is a very simple step.  I couldn't believe that someone could actually sell a script to do this for $4.  This tutorial will show you how to trim excess space.  Then you can record your own script, for free!

1.  You need an image with a transparent background which you want to trim.  This can be a PNG or it can even be a PSPImage file you are working on that has multiple layers.  Just make sure that all the layers are visible.

2.  Select the crop tool and click the button for Snap crop rectangle to Merged Opaque.

This will force the crop tool to be exactly the size of your image.

3.  Click the check mark to complete the crop.

Your image is now trimmed.

You can record this step as a script and then use the batch tool to apply it to a bunch of images at once.

Candy Cane Lane

I made this kit last year for SNL56.  The theme was Christmas in the Kitchen.  Hopefully people can use it this year for the holidays.

This kit comes with:

2 papers
2 frames
2 brads
2 bows
1 candy cane
1 alpha

Scrap Kit

Psychedelic Rotten Vegetables

Rotten Vegetables

Psychedelic Rotten Eggs

Rotten Eggs

Psychedelic Rose Petals

Rose Petals

Psychedelic Rippling Sandstorm

Ripping Sandstorm

Psychedelic Ringworm Circus

I'm going to go see the circus next month, but it won't be a ringworm circus.

Ringworm Circus

Psychedelic Red-Blue Filaments

Red-Blue Filaments

Psychedelic Quantum Threads

Quantum Threads

Psychedelic Primordial Goop

Primordial Goop

Psychedelic Primitive Life

And, the credit card was never found.

Primitive Life

Psychedelic Plum Particles

In response to the criticisms that the images in my tutorials are too hard to see, I would like to point out that it is possible click on the images and get a LARGE view.  Also, I have started to convert my tutorials to PDF.  My current plan is to upload them to a commercial site and charge a nominal fee per PDF.  This is because I am HATING the process of converting the tutorials to PDF.  It is like torture.  So the monetary incentive is to convince me to keep doing it.  Else, I would quit.  However, the web versions of the tutorials will remain available for free on my blog.

I have converted a few already.  You can find them listed on the side of my blog.  I'll have to see if this incentive works because I have done a few and I'm not sure that it is worth converting all my tutorials to PDF.  As it will take me a while to convert all the tutorials, if you have a favorite that you want to acquire in printable PDF form, then leave me a comment and I will do that tutorial first. 

Plum Particles

Like Chinese but Not Alphabet

This is the alpha that I made while writing up the Alpha Cutter tutorial.  I also lost my credit card and I feel like crap.

Alpha