©Cathy's Corner - Bubble Background Tutorial

(Click on the above graphic for an
explanation of the FBN skill ratings.)

I would like to thank Bunney...her Beautiful Star Background tutorial inspired this tutorial!!

Thanks to Whisper, Debbie, for testing this tutorial for me!!!

For this tutorial you will need:

Paint Shop Pro (written with version 7, but should work with version 6 or 8)
Simple Filters, which you can get here
VM Natural Filters, which you can get here (listed under "Visman")
VM Toolbox Filters, which you can get here (listed under "Visman")

Open a new image, 200x200, white background, 16.7 Million Colors (24 bit). Save this image as "bubble.psp".

Normally I would be telling you to save your work throughout the tutorial; however, this tutorial is so simple this step isn't necessary!

Make your foreground color a medium color of your choice.
(I used #5281C0 for the background on this page)
Make your background color a lighter shade of the same color.
(I used #DBE7F7 for the background on this page)

Click on the small black arrow in your top "Styles" box.

Then click on gradient.

Click on the styles box (where the gradient is showing) to open the Gradient properties box. We will be using #1 Foreground-Background gradient, with the following settings:

Click on your Flood Fill Tool and fill your image:

Apply the Plastic Starfish filter using the default settings
(I cropped my screen shot to reduce the size, yours will look different):
(Effects/Plug In Filters/VM Natural/Plastic Starfish)

You should now have this:

Apply the Soft Border filter using the default settings
(I cropped my screen shot to reduce the size, yours will look different):
(Effects/Plug In Filters/VM Toolbox/Soft Border)

You should now have this:

Apply the Pizza Slice Mirror filter.
(Effects/Plug In Filters/Simple/Pizza Slice Mirror):

Apply the Quick Tile filter.
(Effects/Plug In Filters/Simple/Quick Tile):

That's it - you're done. Save is your favorite format to use as a background image.

Here are some other tiles I made, using different gradients, and playing with the settings on the filters. Please feel free to take and use any of these by right clicking and saving to your hard drive!!!

people have visited this page since February 28, 2002