©Cathy's Corner - Rainy Day Duck Tutorial

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

I want to thank Bear, Janie, Lemur, Maryann, and Suzanne
for testing this tutorial. Your suggestions were greatly appreciated!!

I find that I learn much easier with lots of visuals, so I use lots of screen shots in my tutorials. Therefore; this tutorial is graphics intensive. Please give the page time to load. Thanks, Cathy :)

To create your Rainy Day Duck, you will need:

1. Paint Shop Pro 7. You can download a 30 day trial version at the Jasc website.

2. My Rainy Day Duck zip files, which you can download below:

Click here for PSP 7 and earlier

*** OR ***

Click here for PSP 8 and later

unzip your file (cc_rainy_day.zip or cc_riany_day(PSPX).zip to a folder of your choice
NOTE: In PSP7 you can point to any folder when loading selections
In PSP8 and later you will have to edit your selection paths to include this folder. You can remove it from your selections path after you have completed this tutorial.

unzip the presets file to your PSP presets folder

Before we start, here are a few things that may help you.

Here is a screen shot of my standard toolbar, showing the 5 different "selection" buttons which I always have available to me. I found myself using these items quite often, so I added them to my toolbar, making them easily accessible. We will be using several of these features for this tutorial, so you may want to add them to your own toolbar.
If you don't want to add them, you can still click on Selections and choose the function from the drop down list.

This is a color swatch with the colors I used to make my duck.
(Right click and save. Open in PSP while making your duck.)
When the instructions say "Change your foreground color to...", use your Dropper tool and click on the color you want with your left mouse button. Of course, you can feel free to use any other colors for your duck.

The most important advice I can give you is to save often!
The autosave function of PSP7 is wonderful, but not foolproof!
I'll remind you throughout the tutorial to save.

Following is a screen shot of my layer palette showing all the layers we will be adding for our image. I suggest you copy this image and paste it into PSP as a reference. With so many layers, and the repetitive steps we will be using, it is very easy to skip a step or get confused. (If you prefer, you can add all your layers in the beginning and simply activate the appropriate layer when the instructions say to add the layer.)

Ready?...let's get started!!!

1. Open the "cc_dusk_with_alpha_selections.psp" file in Paint Shop Pro.

TIP: Save your image now as "duck.psp" in a folder of your choice. Now you can easily save your image at any time by holding down your control key (ctrl) and pressing "s". I'll be reminding you to save your image using Ctrl+ S.

2. Change your foreground color to color 1 (light blue).

3. Add a new layer and name it puddle.

4. Click on Selections/Load from Disk. Browse to the folder you unzipped your selection files to and choose cc1_puddle.sel. Then choose open.

5. Click on your flood fill tool and fill your selected area by clicking once with your left mouse button.

6. Add a new layer and name it puddle hilite.
NOTE: The "hilite" selections are very narrow, so you may want to zoom in on your image before trying to flood fill the selected area on these layers. Click on the Magnifying Glass in your toolbar, or you can go to View/Zoom Out by 5.

7. Change your foreground color to color 2 (medium blue).

8. Click on Selections/Load from Disk. Browse to the folder you unzipped your selection files to and choose cc2_puddle_hilite.sel. Then choose open.

9. Click on your flood fill tool and fill your selected area by clicking once with your left mouse button.

Your image should look like this:

Now would be a good time to save (Ctrl + S)

10. Add a new layer and name it duck body.

11. Change your foreground color to color 3 (yellow).

12. Click on Selections/Load from Disk. Browse to the folder you unzipped your selection files to and choose cc3_duck_body.sel. Then choose open.

13. Click on your flood fill tool and fill your selected area by clicking once with your left mouse button.

14. Add a new layer and name it duck beak.

15. Change your foreground color to color 4 (light orange).

16. Click on Selections/Load from Disk. Browse to the folder you unzipped your selection files to and choose cc4_beak.sel. Then choose open.

17. Click on your flood fill tool and fill your selected area by clicking once with your left mouse button.

Now would be a good time to save (Ctrl + S)

18. Add a new layer and name it eye.

19. Change your foreground color to color 5 (bright blue).

20. Click on Selections/Load from Disk. Browse to the folder you unzipped your selection files to and choose cc5_eye.sel. Then choose open.

21. Click on your flood fill tool and fill your selected area by clicking once with your left mouse button.

Your image should look like this:

Now would be a good time to save (Ctrl + S)

22. Add a new layer and name it duck hilite.

23. Change your foreground color to color 6 (dark orange).

24. Click on Selections/Load from Disk. Browse to the folder you unzipped your selection files to and choose cc6_duck_hilite.sel. Then choose open.

25. Click on your flood fill tool and fill your selected area by clicking once with your left mouse button.

26. Add a new layer and name it inner boots.

27. Change your foreground color to color 7 (red).

28. Click on Selections/Load from Disk. Browse to the folder you unzipped your selection files to and choose cc7_inner_boots.sel. Then choose open.

29. Click on your flood fill tool and fill your selected area by clicking once with your left mouse button.

30. Add a new layer and name it boots top and bottom.

31. Change your foreground color to color 5 (bright blue).

32. Click on Selections/Load from Disk. Browse to the folder you unzipped your selection files to and choose cc8_boots_top_bottom.sel. Then choose open.

33. Click on your flood fill tool and fill your selected area by clicking once with your left mouse button.

Now would be a good time to save (Ctrl + S)

34. Add a new layer and name it boots hilite.

35. Change your foreground color to color 8 (black).

36. Click on Selections/Load from Disk. Browse to the folder you unzipped your selection files to and choose cc9_boot_hilite.sel. Then choose open.

37. Click on your flood fill tool and fill your selected area by clicking once with your left mouse button.

Your image should look like this:

38. Add a new layer and name it umbrella handle.

39. Change your foreground color to color 9 (bright green).

40. Click on Selections/Load from Disk. Browse to the folder you unzipped your selection files to and choose cc10_umbrella_handle.sel. Then choose open.

41. Click on your flood fill tool and fill your selected area by clicking once with your left mouse button.

Now would be a good time to save (Ctrl + S)

42. Add a new layer and name it umbrella handle hilite.

43. Change your foreground color to color 10 (medium green).

44. Click on Selections/Load from Disk. Browse to the folder you unzipped your selection files to and choose cc11_umbrella_handle_hilite.sel. Then choose open.

45. Click on your flood fill tool and fill your selected area by clicking once with your left mouse button.

46. Add a new layer and name it umbrella.

47. Change your foreground color to color 11 (light purple).

48. Click on Selections/Load from Disk. Browse to the folder you unzipped your selection files to and choose cc12_umbrella.sel. Then choose open.

49. Click on your flood fill tool and fill your selected area by clicking once with your left mouse button.

50. Add a new layer and name it umbrella hilite.

51. Change your foreground color to color 12 (dark purple).

52. Click on Selections/Load from Disk. Browse to the folder you unzipped your selection files to and choose cc13_umbrella_hilite.sel. Then choose open.

53. Click on your flood fill tool and fill your selected area by clicking once with your left mouse button.

Now would be a good time to save (Ctrl + S)

54. Add a new layer and name it raindrops.

55. Change your foreground color to color 1 (light blue).

56. Click on Selections/Load from Disk. Browse to the folder you unzipped your selection files to and choose cc14_raindrops.sel. Then choose open.

57. Click on your flood fill tool and fill your selected area by clicking once with your left mouse button.

58. Add a new layer and name it raindrops hilite.

59. Change your foreground color to color 2 (medium blue).

60. Click on Selections/Load from Disk. Browse to the folder you unzipped your selection files to and choose cc15_raindrops_hilite.sel. Then choose open.

61. Click on your flood fill tool and fill your selected area by clicking once with your left mouse button.

Your image should look like this:

Now would be a good time to save (Ctrl + S)

We now have all our layers in place. Your layer palette should look like this (if not, go back to see if you skipped a step):

You may be happy with your duck as is. If so, great!!! Duplicate your image. You can duplicate by holding down your Shift Key and hitting "D"; or Window/Duplicate in your main menu.

Save your new image in psp format and close it. By saving in psp format, you keep all our layers intact. You can now open it at a later time and change any of the colors, if you'd like.

Let's do a little tweaking to our duck......page 2