Cats with PSP

This tutorial was written for PSP'ers with a good understanding of PSP tools. I didn't write out the instructions in enough details for beginners. I did include retouch tool with a custom paintbrush for the black cat; perhaps you'd like to look over that area even if you do not make a black cat to learn a neat trick for shading and highlight furs more realistically.

Supplies

You'll need the following supplies to complete this tutorial:

• PSP 6 or 7, click here to download a trial version. This tutorial was written based on version 7. Instructions that I know that are different for PSP6 are the colorizing portions. I'll try to post instructions for PSP6 for these parts very soon (feel free to send me PSP6 instructions with a gratuitous link back if you don't see them posted yet *S*)
• This Zip file which contains the white fur base used for all variations of cats, along with the selections for the lying down cat's body parts, and also the face, whiskers, and claws I made. This tutorial was difficult enough as it is without me attempting to do a face painting tutorial *S*

Email:   shreela@NOSPAMdirecway.com   for any questions
..::||  copy into your email program to mail  ||::..
..::||  erase the NOSPAM part  ||::..

Special Thanks to Doneta of Fleigmommy's Tutorials for suppling the cat eyes base, and hints on how to get rid of smudge glow LOL. She has LOTS and LOTS of furry critter tutorials with which you can have fun *S*

Basic Body

1. New image: transparent 400x290
2. Set stroke to white fur
   (Black cats do NOT cutout or smudge yet; fill in all your layers with white fur and then proceed to black cat instructions).
   
   
3. New layer called body front; load body front.sel and fill with white fur.
   
   Ctrl+a then Ctrl+f and apply the following cutout:
   • V&H: 0
   • Color: Black
   • Opacity: 50
   • Blur: 30
   
   
4. New layer called body main; load body main.sel and fill with white fur.
   
   Ctrl+a then Ctrl+f and apply the following cutout:
   • V&H: 0
   • Color: Black
   • Opacity: 50
   • Blur: 40
   
   
5. New layer called tail; load tail.sel and fill with white fur.
   
   Ctrl+a then Ctrl+f and apply the following cutout:
   • V&H: 0
   • Color: Black
   • Opacity: 50
   • Blur: 10
   
   
6. New layer called head; load head.sel and fill with white fur.
   
   Ctrl+a then Ctrl+f and apply the following cutout:
   • V&H: 0
   • Color: Black
   • Opacity:50
   • Blur: 20
   
   
7. Highlight main body layer in layers palette; set eraser to:
   • Shape: round
   • Size: 20
   • Hardness: 0
   • Opacity: 70
   • Step: 10
   • Density: 50

Erase the upper left side of main body where the cutout shading is off; see screenshot below for guidance. Stop erasing above the front leg. I turned down the transparency of the body front layer so I would know where NOT to erase. I'll admit I had to ctrl+z but won't say how many times 8-P

Save

This is the base cat of the other cat variations I explain on this page. Unless you wish to only make a white cat, I would recommend that you duplicate and work off of the new image so you'll have a base already made for the other variations. This will be the only save reminder, as I hope you all have learned to save often.

Smudge

Smudge each layer with these retouch settings:

• Shape: round
• Size: 10
• Hardness: 0
• Opacity: 50
• Step: 10
• Density: 50

Decide where you'd like to go next (white cats proceed to face and claws):

• Make this cat into a calico cat
• Make this cat into a black cat
• Finishing with face and claws

Calico

You may make your own colored areas by using Lasso freehand antialias checked and feather 2 if you wish to make your cat's colorations, OR load my orange.sel and click on Colors | Adjust | Hue/Saturation/Lightness and use these settings:

• Settings: Master
• Colorize: Checked
• Hue: 30
• Saturation: 100
• Lightness: -20 (negative)

Ctrl+y to repeat to get the necessary depth of orange. You may repeat once more if you prefer.

Load black.sel (or make your own if you wish like above) and using Hue/Saturation/Lightness again, change the settings to:

• Settings: Master
• Colorize: UNchecked
• Hue: 0
• Saturation: -100 (negative)
• Lightness: -70

You might not see it yet, but this smudging effect gives dark colored areas a light greyish glow when placed over some backgrounds. So we'll need to add a drop shadow to the tail portion since it's black (thanks Doneta).

Click to highlight the tail layer in layers palette. Ctrl+a then Ctrl+f then Ctrl+Shift+f to unfloat the selection (sorry about my using so many shortcut combos, I know some don't like them, but I use them soo much I don't know how to do it the regular click click way LOL. They can be a HUGE timesaver when learned though *S*). This just gave you the smudged tail selection. Keep this selection and click on the layer BELOW tail and add a new layer for the shadow. Now add a drop shadow with these settings:

• V&H: 2
• Color: black
• Opacity: 50
• Blur: 5

Use eraser to clean up the shadow that's above the tail, leaving only the parts that are on the outside of the cat.

Black Cat

You should have four layers all filled with white fur. Click to highlight body front layer in layers palette. Click on Colors | Negative Image; click on the next layer up and use the shortcut keys Ctrl+y to repeat for each layer.

Click on body front layer in layers palette and Ctrl+a then Ctrl+f and apply the following cutout:

• V&H: 0
• Color: #5A5858
• Opacity: 50
• Blur: 30

The above cutout settings will be used on each layer with the exception of blur settings, which are as follows:

• body main's blur is 40
• tail's blur is 10
• head's blur is 20

Smudge each layer with these retouch settings:

• Shape: round
• Size: 10
• Hardness: 0
• Opacity: 50
• Step: 10
• Density: 50

You'll need to add a drop shadow to the outer portions of the cat to avoid the grey glow that can occur when the cat is placed against certain backgrounds (thanks Doneta). Merge visible and Ctrl+a then Ctrl+f then add a drop shadow with the following settings:

• V&H: 2
• Color: black
• Opacity: 50
• Blur: 5

If you want your cat to be solid black, please click here to finish with face and claws. If you'd like to have some white spots, here is how I did it (I'm sure there are about a gazillion ways; this is just one of them): Retouch tool with a special paintbrush for psp7 only. The zip is 11kb and put it wherever you keep your special paintbrushes (or the default \brushes folder under your PSP directory).

Here is one for PSP6 that is 1kb, it will appear as blurry dots in your custom paintbrush box. PSP7 can resize custom made paintbrushes whereas PSP6 can't resize. I use this brush on a lot of hair and furs, so I prefer it bigger so I can resize it how I want. PSP7 can use the PSP6 brush if they'd like.

Retouch settings are:

• Brush: click in the area shown in the aqua colored box below:
  
  Choose Custom and a new box appears:
  Click on the down arrow in the left side preview box (just like choosing patterns and gradients) and pick your brush. Your number will not be the same as mine I would imagine, but if you hover over it with your cursor for a few seconds, you'll get a screentip that tells you the file name and it should be hair.jbr ...click on it to select, then click OK in the custom brush box.
  
  Now set your other settings as below or refer to the first brush screenshot since I have them in there.
• Size: 15
• Opacity: 70
• Step: 15
• LightenRGB from the bottom right pulldown menu

This will lighten up the areas you want lightened but does not produce such a solid result as the spray can/gaussian blur combination. I think it looks more natural. You could also use this brush with similiar settings but changing to DarkenRGB to produce darker areas when you have light colored fur.

The stronger spots on the chest and paws were achieved by vigorous scribbling in a small area. And the light variations in the fur on the main body were achieved by random scribblings, with some areas recieving more attention. I had to play around with it to get the feel for it, and hope you'll enjoy this way of doing it also.

Please click here to finish with face and claws (you don't have to click this for now, the orange tabby will go here when I figure it out and then code it out).

Face and Claws