How to Create a Simple 3D Welcome Banner in PSP8

This tutorial is will show you how to create a simple yet very effective welcome banner in PSP8. It is directly aimed at beginners, and is part of my Absolute Beginners series. You'll learn how to:

Create a new image by using the preset menu;
Change colors and gradients on the colour palette;
Use the text tool;
Add Borders;
Use the magic wand to select an area;
Apply a drop shadow and outer bevel.

Note: This tutorial may be downloaded or printed out for personal use only. It must not, under any circumstances, be taken from this site in its entirety or in parts and passed around Yahoo or MSN Groups, re-posted on other websites or passed on to other individuals. Placing a link on your Group's site or your own site is fine, and passing links around is also fine. But links ONLY please. There are logos available on my resources page if you wish to use one. Thank you for your co-operation.

As always, if you have any questions about this tut, or any comments or suggestions in general your feedback is always welcome. Just click on the link above to contact me.

1.  The preset menu in the New Image box has several presets which are timesavers if you need to open images of the same size regularly. You can even save your own, but for now we'll just go with one of the presets already there. Click on the shortcut icon to open the create new image box:

2.  Scroll down the list (shown right) until you see '468 x 60 Full Banner'. Click on it and then 'OK'. Now open the materials palette (see below...if it's not already showing, go to View>Palettes>Materials). We're going to fill our image with a new color so right-click on the existing foreground color (mine is the black square) to bring up the small pop-up color palette. Click on any existing color to choose it (for what it's worth I went with light grey) or if you'd prefer, click on 'Other' to have a bigger choice.

3.  Now we're going to have to fill it. Click on the fill tool (the paint bucket) on the toolbox:

Now left-click anywhere inside the image to fill. If you chose the light grey as I did, this is what you should now see:

We're almost ready to apply some text, but first we have to think about what colours we're going to use for it. I'm thinking of a nice, crisp outline, so I'm going to use black for the stroke properties. As for the text fill, something classy yet eyecatching huh? I've decided on a nice metallic gradient which is (conveniently!) already a preset.

Ok, so now we're going to have to change the colors in the materials palette again. Once again right-click on the foreground color box just like we did before in Step 2. above. The foreground color also doubles as the outline color for text and shapes. This time choose black from the pop-up color palette. OK, that's got the stroke taken care of.

4.  To select a gradient for the fill, left-click on the background color (which is also the fill color for text and shapes) to bring up the big materials palette. Click on the gradients tab, then scroll down through the gradients until you come to the Metal Steel one (shown at right). Click on that, and then OK to select it. Tip: You don't have to stick with just the preset gradients that already come with PSP if you don't like any of them. You can make your own, or even easier, download gradients that others have made. They're easy to instal - all you have to do is to place them directly into your gradients folder after you've downloaded them.