Paint Shop Pro 5's new layers feature lends itself to the creationof some very interesting projects. I've always enjoyed Surrealistic, Otherwordlyart, and now PSP 5 lets me easily create some of my own.  This tutorialis a little different than my others. It's meant to stimulate your creativitymore than to teach you a particular technique. I hope you like it.

Let me begin by saying that most of the images you see here havebeen resized to fit in my frames. They started out BIG - 1500 x 700 pixelsor larger. So don't think that your projects have to be small. It's betterto start big and then resize when you're done. You get much more controlthat way.

You don't start this project by opening a new file, but rather byopening a new idea. I wanted to create a landscape...one that could neverbe found on Earth: a DreamScape.  With that idea in mind I began tocollect images that could act as elements of my project. Photos are easyto find on the web. One of the best place that I know of to find images is ArtToday. For a small monthly fee you can download all the photos, clipart and webgraphics you could want. And they are all free for any reasonableuse. And the searchable database makes finding your images easy.

I went looking for a mountain range for my landscape and a starfieldfor my sky.  Instead of a starfield I came across a wonderful shotof a nebula. These two pics were the start of my project.
 

 Next I opened a new file the same size as my mountain range,with a white background and 16 million colors.To create a landscape, youstart from the furthest elements and work your way forward. Each elementis a different layer. Obviously the sky is the furthest away from the viewer,so that had to go in first. Since my mountains were going to cover thelower half of the image, I first rotated my nebula by 180 degrees (Image:Rotate,then check 180 degrees.)  I then copied the nebula and pasted it inas a new layer (Edit, Paste: As a new Layer.) I don't like putting anyimages on the background layer because it limits how I can manipulate themlater. After I pasted the new layer I adjusted its position up a bit usingthe Mover tool.

Next I began to prepare my mountain range. Obviously the sky hadto go. I set my background color to white and then chose my Select tool(the Magic Wand).  With the Tolerance set to 25 - 30 I clicked onthe sky and then hit Delete. This changed the selected areas to white.I continued this until the sky was completely white. I then copied theimage (Edit:Copy) and Pasted it into my project as a transparent selection(Edit, Paste: As a Transparent Selection). I wanted this to be a new Layer,so I next went to Selections: Promote to Layer.
 
 

Okay, so far so good. But it still needs something. I decided thata planet setting over the mountains would help. I found this image of Earthfrom space which I thought would look great.  In my project, the lightis coming from the left, so I rotated the Earth by 45 degrees (to put theshadow on the right side). I then used the Area select tool, (with theshape set to circle) to cut it out, and I pasted it as a New Image so thatI could resize it. Afetr resizing, I decided to blur it a little to giveit that distant look.

To add the Earth, I pasted it into the image as a new layer.Thisof course placed it in front of the mountains. To fix that, I went to theLayers Menu, Arrange: Move Down. I then used the Mover tool to positionthe globe.
 
 
 
 

The last element that I wanted to add to my image was a spectator- someone to look out over the desolate plains to the mountains beyond.I found an image of a crowd and decided to use one of the people as myspectator.
 
 

Cutting out the image of the person I wanted wasn't easy. First Icropped my image so that only a small rectangle around him was left. Izoomed in and then using my paint brush I slowly colored all the area aroundhim white. I knew that I didn't have to be perfect, because  any roughedges would be hidden when I pasted him into the landscape. When I wasdone, I used my Select Tool (Magic Wand) to choose the white area aroundhim, inverted the selection (Selection: Invert) and copied.
 

To finish, I pasted my spectator in as a new Layer. To see the fullsize image, click on the graphic below.
 
 
 

You can also create some interesting images by adjusting the colorsof various elements. This can be done by adding a layer above the element(Layers: New) and setting the Blend mode to Color. Using the paintbrushor paint can to color in this new layer effects the color of the imagebelow it. That's what was done to create the colorful elephants below.The Deform tool can also be invaluable for resizing and distorting elementsin your project.