Starry Night Tutorial

Welcome..
This tutorial was written to honour one of the greatest artists, Vincent Van Gogh.To read more about this artist click Here Mr. Van Gogh used some very good techniques to make his work stand out. He came from the post impressionism era which is the late 1800s. The top 3 artist techniques he incorporated into his work was

Colour

Shape

Values

Why would someone who just wants to create tags need to know this? They make your designs stand out. They help improve your work.

The Tutorial

This tutorial was designed using several filters and one great program.

PSP 9

Filters Unlimited

Ulead Particle

Eye Candy 3

This tutorial only requires a tube of a fairy. The tube I used is a posure fairy created by JK. I cannot find her site, if I could I would direct you to it. But any fairy tube will work. Just use your imagination. Also the colours can be changed to create something unique.

Lets Begin:

The Background

Create a new image 350 pixels wide by 300 pixels high, 16 million colours. Change your foreground colour to 42417c or a dark colour of your choice. Flood fill your image. Change your background to a light version of the same colour you used to flood with, keeping your foreground the same colour.

Effects, plugins, find Filters Unlimited 2. On the left panel, find Render. You should see clouds, foreground/background. Do not change the settings, click apply.

Effects, plugins, Eye Candy 3.1, 4000 might work also, I cannot guarantee. Find swirl. Change settings as per following diagram. Which shows you to change the setting to sand painting and change the twist to 73.

Apply.

Effects, plugins, Ulead, particle. Find the snow effect, change the density to 863, change the colour to a yellow, change the opacity to 83.

Apply.

Add a new raster layer. Flood fill with your dark colour again. Then in the layer palette, change the mode to hard light, and the slide the opacity down to 80.

Layers, merge, merge all flatten. Windows, duplicate. You now have your background plus your tag. Take one image Effects, image effects, seamless tiling. Use the default setting and apply.You can now save your background.

We are now back to one image. Take your lighten/darlen brush and holding down the left mouse button highlight three swirls in to create clouds. Keep going over the swirls lightening them to your desire.

Effects, plugins, Ulead Particle. This time select star which is the last effect on the list. Then change the density to 20, star spike to 5, adjust the colours if you like, change the halo size to 80 then click wire frame. What this does is allow you to move each star to a place you desire. I move all the stars so they do not overlap the edge.

Apply

Add a new raster layer. Change your foreground colour to #ffd944. Take your selections tool. Change settings to ellipse, feather 0, anti alias checked. In the center of your canvas draw out a circle shape. Flood fill with the yellow. Select none. If you want a wedged shape moon, using your selection tool again draw another ellipse slightly above the first, once you have your wedge shape, hit your delete key. Selections, float. Take your oil brush, using the preset stroke hard short, by clicking on the brush in the upper right corner of your tools effect palette, and selecting from the drop down. Go over your moon using this effect. You can then change your foreground colour to one slightly darker and just go around the edges of your moon. Do not deselect. Effects, 3d effects, cutout, change settings to vertical and horizontal 3, opacity 62, blur 8, colour #935b03, fill interior unchecked. Move the moon to the upper right hand corner.

Click on the layer below the moon and add a new raster layer. Using the same colour as the moon, get your air brush tool. Size 113, hardness 75, step 11, density 26, thickness 100, rotation 0, normal mode. Click several times around the moon creating a halo. Then lighten your colour, add a new raster and add this colour with the airbrush tool, just clicking once slightly lower than the moon. Follow my image above. Adjust, blur, radial blur. Use the settings on image below.

Apply.

Click on the layer with the darker moon glow and apply same radial blur. Layers, merge, merge all flatten.

Borders, add a 2" pixel border of white.

Image, canvas size, width 650, height 300, change the colour to the same dark colour you used. Apply.

Open your tube, edit, copy, edit paste as a new layer, resize if needed. Merge all flatten. Then using your selections tube, rectangle. Take a small selection of the side border in the upper area, Layers, promote selection to layer. Selections, select none. Effects, Ulead Particle, click on stars again. Apply this twice. Layers, duplicate. Image, mirror. Then apply your name, and watermarks. Merge all flatten. Image, borders, add a 2 pixel border of white. You can add pool shadow to the sides if desired but is optional. You are done.