Paint Shop Pro Basics 53) Warp tools - Deformation Map

Both the Mesh Warp and the Warp Brush have a setting known as the deformation map. In otherwords a current distortion is saved as a "distortion map" that can be applied to any image as a sort of base template for continuing to edit the image. Great if you want to maintain a change and see how it works on other similar images.

Paint Shop Pro Basics 52) Tools - Warp Brush

The Warp Brush is close to Photoshop's own Liquify filter. It warps the image and allows you to brush in these warps, creating an almost liquid like effect. This can also be used to gently, and cleanly distort the image into a better view. You won't believe the number of guys whom have increased the size of their muscles, decreased their stomachs, and made their girlfriends "phat"er using this tool.

Paint Shop Pro Basics 51) Tools - Warp Mesh

The Warp Mesh tool allows you to warp your image using a simple grid of nodes that are inter connected to create a very fluid distortion. Great for small changes even though very large ones are possible.

Paint Shop Pro Basics 48) Tools - Pen Tool

The Pen tool is one of the most powerful of the vector tools, it's also one of the least automated. So you can create any shape you want, it just won't be overly helpful in making it look decent for you.

Took 3 whole videos to go over the various options and I still didn't catch them all.


Part 1



Part 2



Part 3

Paint Shop Pro Basics 47) Tools - Symmetric Shape tool

The symmetric shape tool is.....nifty. It lets you create symmetric shapes with only a few clicks and tweaks and the editing options are very fun to play with.

Part 1



Addendum - I forgot the Edit Mode

Paint Shop Pro Basics 46) Tools - Ellipse Tool

An ellipse, oval or circle, would be very hard to make on your own. That's why Paint Shop Pro provides just such a tool for you. Pretty cool, no?

Paint Shop Pro Basics 45) Tools - Rectangle Tool

Have you ever wanted to create a rectangular vector? If so have I got a tool for you.

Paint Shop Pro Basics 44) Tools - Preset Shapes Tool

Diving head first into using vectors we start with the Preset Shapes tool that lets you add vector shapes and objects others have created to your image with a simple click, drag, and drop method.

We don't show how to make your own custom shapes though. That's for another day.

Paint Shop Pro Basics 43) Tools - Text Tool

Adding text to an image is pretty basic. You click, you type, you accept the changes and you're done.

Paint Shop Pro X3 kind of changed things up ever so slightly by changing the MO of the tool and allowing for the addition of text right on the image. So this first part covers a little known trick for getting back the old method for defining text (if only ever so slightly) as well as the text basics.

The second part covers the vector portions of the text tool. Hope this helps anyone looking for more information on its use.

Part 1



Part 2

Paint Shop Pro Basics 42) Tools - Picture Tube Tool

Adding clipart or creating fun little effects with clip art is made easy using the Picture Tube tool.

Paint Shop Pro Basics 41) Tools - Color Changer

Touted as a one-click solution for changing the color of something this tool, unlike the color replacer, is a fill-bucket type tool that actually changes the color (hue & saturation) of the color you tell it to match.

Paint Shop Pro Basics 40) Tools - Flood Fill

Fill tool, paint bucket tool, fill bucket tool, whatever you call it it's all the same. It's a tool that samples a color and then attempts to fill in that color with the color defined by the materials palette.

Using the same match modes as the Magic Wand tool I attempt to explain the match modes properly this time around. So if you found the Magic Wand tool confusing this might help....or make it more confusing. It's honestly so hard to tell sometimes.

Paint Shop Pro Basics 39) Tools - Backround Eraser Part 1

The background eraser tool is one of the most powerful and least understood tools. It has quite a large number of options, some of which are never accurately described in tutorials on the subject.

Using an online tutorial made by one of the programmers for Paint Shop Pro on the tool I attempt to explain what each of the options are and how to use this tool effectively. It took two videos to hold all of the information.

Part 1


Part 2

Paint Shop Pro Basics 38) Tools - Eraser Tool

The basics of the eraser tool. A simple tool for, get this, erasing things.

Paint Shop Pro Basics 37) Tools - Emboss Brush

Paint in an embossed effect on the image. Best to use on a separate layer as the grey is ugly. But if it's on it's own layer and you add an overlay effect the edges become really well defined.

Paint Shop Pro Basics 36) Tools - Color Replacer Brush

Color Replacer is not quite the power house it sounds like. It's better for 2D solid color situations. Because it replaces, rather than adjusts, the color defined by the foreground color in the materials palette with the color defined by the background color.

It flattens things if used inappropriately, and there is a tolerance setting so you end up effecting more than just the single color. But it still has its uses.

Paint Shop Pro Basics 35) Tools - Change To Target Brush

By allowing us to use one color (hue, saturation, lightness) as the base for changing the other colors in the image we can more accurately and effectively change the individual (or multiple) values to match the one we've chosen. No more filtering up or down but actually pinpointing the values we want and changing them by painting them in.

Paint Shop Pro Basics 34) Tools - Hue Up-Down Brush

Hue is a perspective color value. It's based on a color wheel where it starts and ends on the same value. How bright and how light the color is are defined by the saturation and lightness values. So this brush allows you to filter through the hues without changing how bright or light colors are by either moving up or down through the color wheel.

Paint Shop Pro Basics 33) Tools - Saturate Up-Down Brush

Increase or decrease the saturation of a portion of the image by use of this brush.

Paint Shop Pro Basics 32) Tools - Soften & Sharpen Brushes

Softening and sharpening are basic functions. And we often see them used either on the whole image or on a portion pardoned off by a selection. These brushes give you that same very general functionality (it's not an unsharp mask or gaussian blur) in the form of a brush.

Paint Shop Pro Basics 31) Tools - Smudge and Push

The ability to push two areas of an image together and have them mesh and blend together, some of the colors mixing and creating new colors is an ability that all artists want out of a program like Paint Shop Pro. Sadly no such tool exists in PSP.

Even though there is no blending tool there is a way to partially blend two areas of an image by pushing and smudging the image to liquify the appearance and to a lesser degree mixing the areas using a normal additive process between pixels.

I explain it better in the video.

Paint Shop Pro Basics 30) Tools - Dodge & Burn Brushes

Remember when I told you that there was more than one way to lighten/darken a portion of the image using a brush interface? Well this is the second way.

Paint Shop Pro Basics 29) Tools - Lighten Darken Brush

Want to Lighten/Darken a portion of an image using a brush like interface? This is but one of the possible tools for doing just that.

Paint Shop Pro Basics 28) Tools - Paintbrush & Airbrush

In-spite of its name, and the basic function, the paint brush isn't just for painting or drawing with. It's how you use the base function that determines the best way to use the brush. You can draw on a blank layer and then use the blend modes and opacity to effect change in the underlying layer.

Paint Shop Pro Basics 27) Tools - Object Remover

Found in the same area as the clone tool and scratch remover, for obvious reasons, this tool allows you to remove large portions of an image, preferably ones on a well textured area, by using another portion of the same image. Really nice if you don't want to do the work yourself, or don't trust yourself to do the work yourself.

Paint Shop Pro Basics 26) Tools - Scratch Remover

Don't let the name fool you, it's not just for scratches but it does remove thin areas by sampling the color and texture of the areas around the scratch (or thin area of the image) to attempt to create a seamless repair that fits in well with the surrounding image.

I've used this on wires, poles, stray strands of hair in front of a person's face, and yes actual scratches on photos that I scanned in. It's very handy I must say.

Paint Shop Pro Basics 25) Tools - Clone Brush

I remember, before the clone brush (clone stamp) tool I thought I was so clever when I used layers and selections the cover up areas of an image using another area from the same image. Cloning has simplified this process and the overall effect by not only making it into a brush but by giving it all of the same brush settings as the traditional paint brush itself.

So now we have flexibility, large options, and the fun of quickly and easily copying portions of an image from one place to another, even between images.

Paint Shop Pro Basics 24) Tools - Brush Settings

As we approach the many, many, brushes available in Paint Shop Pro we have to face the fact that most of the settings are exactly the same across Paint Shop Pro.

As such I made a special tutorial covering only the most common brush settings that we will see pop up time and time again as we go over the different brushes we will be using every day.

Paint Shop Pro Basics 23) Tools - Cosmetic tools

Paint Shop Pro's cosmetic tools are meant to be quick and easy tools for fixing the most common cosmetic problems in a photograph, especially portraits and photos of people, though they can be used in other places as well. :D

Paint Shop Pro Basics 22) Tools -Red Eye Removal

Red-eye is one of the most common problems with photographs. Sure they have a special anti-red-eye flash on most cameras these days but it's recommended by professionals that you avoid this function as it abnormally dilates the pupil making them much smaller than normal.

Their option? Allow the red-eye to occur and fix it in post-production on your computer using simple tools like this one.

Paint Shop Pro Basics 21) Tools - Perspective Correction

Correct perspective issues quickly and easily with this perspective correction tool.

Paint Shop Pro Basics 20) Tools - Straighten Tool

Not every picture is taken perfectly straight. And some only look straight. The straighten tool is not only a tool for rotating the image (and in some cases cropping off the extra corners) but also for measuring exactly how crooked an image, or element of an image, is.

Paint Shop Pro Basics 19) Tools - Crop Tool

Not every image perfectly fits into the size you want it to, and in some cases images contain elements you just want to cut out. Whatever the reason, if you don't mind losing actual parts of your image, the crop tool is your tool for fitting an image into the proper size or removing unwanted elements.

Think of it like taking digital scissors to your image to get rid of the bad unnecessary parts.

Paint Shop Pro Basics 18) Tools - Eye dropper

The eye-dropper tool allows you to select a color from any of the currently opened images and use it as either the foreground/background color in the Materials Palette and reuse it with any of the tools that makes use of the materials palette.

Paint Shop Pro Basics 17) Tools - Magic Wand Selection

The magic wand tool is a that automatically selects pixels in your image based on any number of match modes.

This tries, and fails miserably, to properly explain the magic wand tool. I still need to play around with it some more to properly understand it. But I do manage to give a general overview of its use. So hopefully it helps someone.

Paint Shop Pro Basics 16) Tools - Freehand Selection

The freehand selection tool allows you to trace an object either manually or automatically with varying results. I hope to introduce the basics and make it easier to understand and use.

Paint Shop Pro Basics 15) Tools - Selection Tool

The bare minimum selection tool allows you to create selections based on geometric shapes. And this tutorial goes over the basics of this basic selection tool.

Paint Shop Pro Basics 14) Tools - Move & Pick tools

The Move and Pick tools are some of the most basic tools when dealing with images and layers. The Move tool even has a special feature that works with selections. ;)

Paint Shop Pro Basics 13) Tools - Pan & Zoom

Leaving layers behind, unfinished, I moved onto the tools toolbar and starting right at the top we get into the basics of panning around an image and zooming into it.

Paint Shop Pro Basics 12) Layers - Layer Groups

Grouping layers together is yet another organizational tool for associating layers with each other. These ones do need to be next to each other in the stacking order but it makes moving and advanced layer blending effects possible where linksets do not.

Paint Shop Pro Basics 11) Layers - Link Sets

Link sets are an organizational tool for associating layers with each other without having to be right next to each other in the layers palette or stacking order.

Paint Shop Pro Basics 10) Layers - Layer Palette

A small introduction to some, not all, of the features available for manipulating layers inside the layers palette.

Paint Shop Pro Basics: 9) Layers - Intro

Layers are the basis for every kind of graphic art today. Whether you enjoy doing painting, drawing, vectors, scrapbooking, photo-editing, photo-manipulation, restoration. It's all available with layers.

You don't have to use them but if you can find a use for them, layers are an amazingly powerful tool to add to your graphics arsenal.

Paint Shop Pro has not only a basic layer system but also some advanced layer types and settings. This is just a very general overview of what layers are used for and the types of layers are available inside Paint Shop Pro.

Paint Shop Pro Basics: 8) Materials - Swatches

Swatches are a presets for colors, gradients, and patterns for quick access to something you use often.

Paint Shop Pro Basics: 7) Materials - Textures

Adding textures to your materials really helps to bring them out or add a fun dimension to whatever it is you're doing.

Paint Shop Pro Basics: 6) Materials - Patterns

Using patterns in Paint Shop Pro


A small addendum for patterns

Paint Shop Pro Basics: 5) Materials - Gradients

A small tutorial on using, editing, and creating gradients in the Materials Palette.

Paint Shop Pro Basics: 4) Materials - Color

A more in-depth look at selecting solid colors in the Materials Palette.

Paint Shop Pro Basics: 3) Materials Palette

A general over-view of how the Material Palette works



A small addendum to this about a feature I missed.

Paint Shop Pro Basics: 2) History Palette

Using the History Palette for more advanced access to the Undo & Redo system inside Paint Shop Pro

Paint Shop Pro Basics: 1) Undo & Redo

A basic introduction to the simple Undo & Redo system in Paint Shop Pro.

Starting a blog

Hello, and welcome to one of the most mismanaged blogs on the use of Paint Shop Pro you'll ever find. And that's saying something. :D

I'm making this to go along with my videos on Youtube aptly named "Paint Shop Pro Basics" I have 50-60 already and still haven't covered any real amount of the functionality of Paint Shop Pro. I hope to continue improving upon the ones I have and continue toward making new ones to further the use of this tool.

It should be noted that I only cover how the tools and commands work. I do not cover methods or "how-tos" I just want you to understand how the tools work and why you use them in certain ways.

So to start off until I have time to properly update, if you're interested in what little I've got you can check out my playlist: LeviFiction Paint Shop Pro Basics Tutorials