...: Crackle Glass Bottle Tutorial :...

This tutorial was created in and for PSP 7. If you have the Anniversary Edition of PSP 7 you can complete the tutorial as written. In other versions of PSP 7, the preset shape that I've used (the champagne bottle) is not available. To this end, I completed the first step of the tutorial and you can download the vector bottle shape already drawn out on its own layer in PSP7 format here and begin with the second screen of the tutorial.

Thanks to DonnaB for pointing out that only PSP 7 AE contains the champagne bottle shape and huge thank you's to both DonnaB and LindaMarie for being such gracious beta-testers! :)

No outside filters or third party applications are used.

Let's get 'Cracklin'! :)

New canvas, 400 x 400, white background. Set your foreground and background colours to black. Now we need a bottle selection. Click on the Preset Shapes tool and choose the champagne bottle, settings as shown.

Draw out your bottle somewhere near the center of your canvas. The size is up to you, which will make every bottle somewhat unique because the finished "crackle" effect looks a little different at every size.

One of the perks when working with vector objects is that we can now go up to Selections and choose "From Vector Object". This will give us a perfect selection with none of the 'jaggies' that we often get when using the magic wand.

Once the selection appears around your bottle, go to Selections|Save to Alpha Channel. Click OK twice and get out of there. Deselect.

With the selection saved, we no longer need the bottle or the vector layer... so just slide that layer into the trash.

Add a new layer now and go to Selections|Load From Alpha Channel and call back your bottle selection.

Change your foreground colour to white and flood fill the bottle selection with white.

Go to Effects|Noise|Add and choose 35% uniform.

Deselect.

Go to Effects|Blur|Gaussian Blur and choose a radius of 3.

Be sure that your foreground colour is still set to white and go to Effects|Artistic Effects|Hot Wax Coating. Repeat the Hot Wax Coating once more.

Go to Effects|Geometric Effects|Wind. Use strength 15 and choose From Left. Again, choose Wind and use a strength of 15 From Right.

Go to Image|Rotate and choose 90 Degrees to the Right with the All Layers box unchecked.

Go to Effects|Geometric Effects|Wind. Drop the strength down to 10 and choose From Left.

Go to Image|Rotate and choose 90 Degrees to the Left with the All Layers box unchecked.

Your image should look somewhat as shown at left.

Once again, call back your bottle selection by going to Selections|Load From Alpha Channel.

In all probability, your selection will be off to the left at this point. So, click on the Mover Tool (four-pointed arrow) and right-click on your selection so that you can move it over the centermost section of that blurred mess up there. I dragged mine to the center as shown at left.

And this part is of utmost importance! Once you have moved your selection over, go to Selections|Save To Alpha Channel. If you neglect to do this now, you'll be cursing yourself later... believe me! lol!

You'll now have two selections saved to Alpha Channel... which will be listed as Selection #1 and Selection #2. From this point on we'll only be using Selection #2.

Do not deselect yet.

Duplicate your bottle layer now... Layers|Duplicate.

Call back your Selection #2 from the Alpha Channel. (Selections|Load From Alpha Channel)

Go to Image|Mirror. (Just a wee side note here... if you tried to mirror this layer without the alpha channel selection to constrain it, the mirrored image would scoot off to the left and you'd have to try to drag it back into the exact location before continuing on. Gotta love those Alpha Channels!)

Deselect.

On the Copy Of Layer 1 layer drag the opacity slider down to 30. On the Layer 1 layer, drag the opacity slider down to 70.

We're gettin' there... ;)

A couple of cosmetic tweaks are in order here. Make the Copy Of Layer 1 layer active and grab up your selection tool. Set it for Ellipse with antialias ON. Create an elliptical selection at the inside bottom of the bottle. Keep in mind that these are fairly thick glass bottles so make your selection well inside the thickness of the glass.

Go to Colors|Adjust|Brightness and Contrast. Set the Brightness to -50 (that's minus 50) and the Contrast to 0.

Keep the selection active and click on the Layer 1 layer to activate it. Once again, go to Colors|Adjust|Brightness and Contrast. Your former settings will still be set, so just click OK. Deselect.

Activate Copy of Layer 1 once again.

Go to Colors|Histogram Functions|Histogram Adjustment... and use these settings.

Now let's smooth out the bottle outline. With Copy of Layer 1 still active, call back your Selection #2 from the Alpha Channel. Go to Selections|Modify|Feather and set it for 2 pixels. Go to Selections|Invert. Hit the delete key on your keyboard 5 times. Do not deselect. Click on Layer 1 and hit the delete key on your keyboard 5 times. Deselect.

These are delicate enhancements, but they will make your final graphic look far more realistic and I truly think they are worth the extra steps! :)

Alllllrighty then! Let's move on to Part Two and see what can be done with our new bottle... :)

To Part Two > >