Don't Stop Dreaming

You will need:
Paint Shop Pro
3 compatible images or tubes
Mask created by CazG (thank you Caz for your permission) - Here
Word brush.  The one I'm using is from Agi brush set 50
Script font of choice

Open a new canvas, floodfilled with white, 600 x 500.  I'm using two images and a central tube.  Copy and paste both images onto your blank canvas.  Position them either side of the canvas.  Try having your main feature of the image facing into the centre.

With your overlapping image layer active, take your selection tool, set to freehand, feather 30.  Select around the hard straight edge of the overlapping image.  We are doing this freehand as we don't want a straight edge, but a uneven one.  If you prefer to work straight, then use 'point to point' same feather settings.  Hit delete a couple of times.  Once you are happy with the amount you have removed, select none.

Copy and paste your central tube or image.  If using an image, follow the previous step to remove the background so that you have your central feature.  Position in the centre of the canvas, and lower the opacity to about 33, or whatever feels right to you.   Hide your background layer, merge visible.

Duplicate the merged layer once.  On the original layer, go to Effect/Edge Effect/Enhance.  Then change the blend mode on the duplicated layer to Darker.  Merge visible again.

Duplicate the merged layer again.  Hide the copy, and activate the original.  Go to Effect/Artist Effect/Brush Strokes with the following settings.  Or play around until you are happy with the settings.

 

Unhide the copy merged layer and change the blend mode to Luminance.  Your image should now have glowing outlines.  Merge visible once more, and then unhide your white background.

Next load your chosen mask if not using the one supplied.  Layers/ Load/Save Mask/ Load Mask from Disk.  Your chosen settings.  Merge group.

Duplicate this layer, and on the original we are going to apply a blur.  You can use any blur you like, but I'm going to use motion blur.  Go to Adjust/Blur/Motion Blur angle 90, strength 50.  Repeat 3 more times, changing the angle by 90 each time, last one being 0.

Take your eclipse preset tool, foreground black, background null.  Line width 3.  Draw out a small circle.  See my finished tag.  Convert to raster.  Then draw out another smaller circle.  Convert this to raster.  Position them to your liking.   Add a new layer below one of your circles.  Click on your clone tool 

with these settings.

Active your image layer, hover your clone tool over the part you want to appear in the circle, right click to select.  Active the new raster layer under the chosen circle, and left click in the centre, and move your mouse to fill it.   Don't worry about going out of it.   Next activate the circle itself, with your magic wand, select in the centre.  Go to Selections/Modify/Expand by 2.  Activate the layer you cloned, invert, hit delete, select none.  Then Adjust/Hue and Saturation/Colorize, both set to 0.  Repeat with the other circle, starting with a new layer under the other circle.

On the second one I adjusted the brightness to lighten it up a bit.  Next on each circle as a drop shadow of Horizontal and Vertical = 0, Opacity = 50, Blur = 10, colour black.  Then merge them down to the greyed images.

New raster layer.  Select your word brush, using a light colour from your image, click where you would like the wording to be on your tag.  Add the same drop shadow as you did to the circles, but change the colour to a shade darker than the one used for the brush.

Add your copyright information, and your name in a script font.  I'm using Bonheur Royale, which is a pay font.  Use black, foreground set to null.  Position the layer above the word brush layer, but positioned underneath.

Hide your white background layer.  Select your crop tool, and click on Merge Opaque.

Double click on your image to crop.  Unhide your background, and save as a jpeg or png.

You are done.  Hope you enjoyed this tutorial.

Please feel free to link to this tutorial, and/or print it out for your own personal use, but DO NOT copy it in ANY way to put on-line, pass out, or re-write without my permission.  Any resemblance to any other tutorial like this is purely coincidental.   Thank you.  This tutorial was written on the 19th April 2008 by Faerie Queen.

First Place Winner of The Zone Groups Tutorial Contest May 2008