Seascape Tutorial © D.Collins aka Jeza
To do this image you will need two filters from the Flaming Pear collection. Visit that site and download the Twist filter and the
Flood filter. As this seascape image uses 3rd party filters, it can, I'm sure, be done using any graphic package whatsoever. I will be using Paint Shop Pro 8 because thats my prefrence.
1. Open an image 400x300 > 16 million colous > any colour background.
2. Select your gradient tool. Choose a gradient to your likeing and fill your image. Try and get your settings something like the image below.
3. Fire up the Flaming Pear Twist filter and use the settings below as a guideline. Every image is different, so if you dont like what you see, keep pressing the random button (the dice) untill you do. Simple easy sky effect eh!
Note: If you just want the seascape pic then everything that follows can be done on the same layer and only takes a couple of minutes to do the whole thing. However I will be using layers for reasons you will see later.
4. Find your layer pallet and create a new raster layer, make sure it's transparent. Next, select the lasso tool, set it to freehand with a slight feather and draw your mountain range something like the example below.
5. Floodfill this selection with black or dark grey, deselect the outline by pressing Ctrl+D and you should be left with something resembling the image below. Note that the image shows the two layers, the bottom layer is your sky and the top layer, your mountains.
6. Right click on either of those layers in the layer pallet and choose Merge > Merge Visable.
You will then be left with your image on a single layer. Whe will get the two layers back soon, but for the moment we need the image on a single layer for the next filter to do its job.
7. Open the Flood filter and get your image something like the one below. You may need to adjust the horison bar untill you are happy with the setting.
Your image is done now and you can leave it as is. But try the next bit and I promise you won't regret it.
8. Choose your selection tool and set it to rectangle. IMPORTANT, make sure the feather is off or set to zero and the anti-alias is off too. Now make a selection of the bottom, flood filled part of your image right up to the horizon line. Its important that you get the horizon line spot on. When you're happy you have it right copy the selected image to your clipboard. I do this simply by pressing Ctrl+C.
9. Now we want to get our two layers back. Click undo twice, I do this by pressing Ctrl+Z. Yes the new floodfill disappears but remember, we have it in the clipboard so its not lost.
10. You should now be left with the original two layered image with the sky on the bottom and the dark mountains at the top.
Activate the top, mountain layer as we will be working on this. Paste the flood image from the clipboard onto this layer. I do this by pressing Ctrl+E. You will need to position it so it fits exactly where it should. You will now have the image exactly as it was before but with one big difference. The image is now on two layers.
11. Activate the bottom, sky layer, and create a new layer. Our image will now have the original bottom sky layer, a new mountain with floodfill on the top and a blank layer in the middle.
Save the image NOW as a PSPimage file for use and alteration whenever you wish.
Thats it, the new middle layer can be used for anything you want. If you put an image there it will appear to be coming over the horizon as in the examples below.
