First you will need to check the size of your screen. To do that, right click on an empty space on your desktop and from the menu box that appears, select (left click) "Properties." Left click the "Settings" tab and look under the "Screen resolution."

Now open your version of Paint Shop Pro (you can do this with any version of PSP) and select File/New and enter the Width and Height you found under Properties. The new resolution can be as low as 72. Click "OK." (My screen is 1440 x 900.)

In the Layer Palette, right click the Raster 1 layer and rename it "Background." Now find a file that you want to use as the fill for your background. Open it in your workspace. In your Materials palette select Pattern as either your Foreground or your Background. Then scroll to the file you want to use as fill, select the Flood Fill Tool and fill the new image.

Use a new layer for each item you place on your desktop. Name each layer to help you keep up with what each one is. My layers were as follows:

Layer 1: Background

Layer 2: The bow ( my favorite bow tube, colorized using Adjust/Hue and Saturation/Colorize)

Layer 3: Duplicate Layer 2 and Mirror it

Then I hid Layer 1 and merged Layers 2 and 3 and renamed the new layer 2 "Bows." I added a drop shadow at 4/4/70/9.

Unhide Layer 1 (the background layer)

New Layer 3: The big heart (a tube that was located in "My PSP Files/Picture Tubes/Valentine"). Add a drop shadow.

Layer 4: The text on the big heart (Fiolex Girls font). Add a drop shadow.

Layer 5: The text for the year. Add a drop shadow. (Another thing you can do for this layer is to add a calendar to your wallpaper. Go HERE and download Jos Croeze's excellent script for creating a calendar. This can be done for any version of PSP 8 and above.) Create your calendar using the month and year of your choice, selecting the color and size you need. Then paste this calendar as a new layer and, using your Move Tool, nove it to the location where you want it.

Layer 6: The small hearts on the left (gelatin hearts tube)

Layer 7: The small hearts on the right (the same tube) (I then hid all the other layers and merged Layers 6 and 7 and renamed it Side tubes.

New Layer 7: My watermark

Next you can select Layers/Merge/Merge All (flatten). (You must have all the layers merged in order to add an Inner Bevel as in the next step.)

Do a Selections/Select All. Then Selections/Modify/Contract and contract 25. Selections/Invert. Effects/3D Effects/Inner Bevel and play with the settings until you find one you like. If you like, you can add drop shadows around the edge. Here are the inner bevel settings I used.

Save your new image where you can find it. I save my wallpaper files here: C:\WINDOWS\Web\Wallpaper. You may save it as a bitmap (.BMP) file or as a jpeg (.jpg) file. Do not save it as a .psp or a .pspimage file or you will not be able to select it as your wallpaper.

To select the new image as your wallpaper, once again right click on an empty space on your desktop, and from the box menu that appears select "Properties." This time select the Desktop tab. Select "Browse" on the screen. Now navigate to the folder where you saved your new wallpaper and select your new wallpaper file.

And that's it! I hope you enjoyed creating your image as much as I did writing it. While I've written lots of tutorials for using software in my past teaching career, I'm fairly new at creating tutorials for using Paint Shop Pro.

If you have any problems, don't hesitate to contact me.

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This tutorial was written January 6, 2007, and is © copyrighted by Carol Tapp. It was modified in March of 2007. You may LINK to it only. You may not remove any of the graphics, zip files or html within these pages to reproduce these tutorials, without my written permission. These pages may not be removed from this website and sent via e-mail, nor saved, stored or archived in files in YahooGroups or other mailing list sites, nor may they be translated and placed on another site. You may save the tutorial to your own computer in order to work on it off line. You may also print the tutorial but for your use only.

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