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9. Add a new raster layer. Set your foreground to a dark shade of blue and your background to a light shade of blue. The colours I used are these: foreground - R13, G56, B96 and background - R96, G174, B230. Flood fill this new layer with a linear gradient, foreground to background, repeats 0, angle 90. Set the layer blend mode on this layer to Color.
10. Add a new raster layer. Change your foreground colour to white. Select the Draw tool and set up the control window muchly like thusly... ;-)
... and draw three lines from the very top right corner of your window down to three of the highlighted areas in the "water". It helps to maintain credibility if you can connect your lines to bright spots on the ocean floor.
11. While still on your lines layer, go to Blur>Gaussian Blur and give it a radius of 8.00 and then set that layer's blend mode to screen and drag the opacity slider for that layer down to 20.
12. Add a new raster layer. Select the Airbrush (spray can) tool and set the controls window up suchly:
A wee note on what we are about to accomplish here. You know how when you are underwater and you open your bloodshot eyes and see light rays careening down through said water that there are always these dust mote kinda things within those rays? Well, no one likes to dwell too much on what type of matter would account for those motey bits... especially if you've just swallowed a mouthful of the stuff after a spectacularly unsuccessful half-gainer with a full twist (this is a type of dive I'm speaking of... not an alcoholic beverage) but the fact remains that they do exist, so if we want to keep our respectability when rendering underwater light-ray kinds of scenes, we have to go this extra mile and add some albeit faint but nonetheless tangible motey specs. So let's grit out collective teeth and do it...
Just spritz here and there along your three light rays.... it doesn't work to spray actual continuous lines at this point... we just want to give a pzzzt here and pzzzt there... maybe a pzzzt every eighth inch or so. Stay right on your lines and go all the way from the top to the bottom of them. (Feel free to send me abusive email for this shoddy explanation. I won't get it... I'll be out in the pool with the dust mote things... and Jeeves knows better than to disturb me when I'm perfecting my dog paddle.)... ;)
Got your pzzzt'ing done? Allllrighty, then. Go to Blur>Motion Blur and bombard those pzzzts with an angle of 272 and an intensity of 13 pixels. Then go to Image>Blur>Blur. Set the layer blend mode for your pzzzts to Hard Light and bring the opacity for that layer down to 57.
13. Add a new raster layer. (Man, are we havin' fun yet or what???) Click on the Picture Tube tool and go for Jasc's River Rocks. Place some rocks in the front center area of your window. How many and where you put them is totally up to you. But when you're done, go to Image>Blur>Blur and then set that layer's blend mode to Soft Light.
14. Add a new raster layer. Stay with the picture tube tool and call up some Jasc Grass Blades. Plant some blades in the foreground on either side of your rocks... try different sizes and go for creative clumps... this is YOUR graphic... and you'll want to do it proud.
When you have your greenery in place, go to Image>Blur>Blur.
15. Add a new raser layer and drag it UNDER the Background layer. Set your foreground colour to R-128, G-101, B-8. Click on the Airbrush tool and select LUNAR for the paper texture. Set up the control window thusly:
... and paint some detail into the ocean floor. Try to stay off the rocks, though. Just paint in long sweeping motions, staying within the background space. When you have something you like, change the blend mode on this layer to color.
16. Add a new raster layer. Drag it to the very top of the layers pile. Go into the Tubes tool again and scroll down to Jasc's Fish tubes. I used the seahorse, but you can use whatever you like. A cautionary note, though. All of these tubes incorporate a drop shadow which will not look extremely svelte (another excellent word!) when added to your graphic at this stage of the game. If you don't know how to get rid of the drop shadow on a tube, head over to this tutorial index by Hoods and from the PSP Q-tips menu select Quick Tip #4 to learn the technique.
Alternatively, you can use clip art or draw some freehand marine life... or just start up that blender of magaritas now and call it a day. :) Whichever way you work it, you can still take advantage of the custom drop shadow part of the tutorial. Cuz it's included in the price, after all. ;)
In the event that you do use the seahorse tube... once you have him all naked and unfettered and just generally free of drop shadow adornments... make sure you mirror him after you add him to the new layer. Otherwise he'll be highlighted incorrectly. And I can just imagine some underwater photographer who worked with Jacques Cousteau knocking on my door and saying something like, "Please to excuse, but dat dere seahorse look much fake to me since he wear some light from his wrong side." (I'm not making fun of the French language. I am French Canadian... and that's just the way some of us talk... well, okay.... my Uncle Fred in particular. Personally, I find it rather lyrical and perky.) :)
17. While on your seahorse layer, go to Layers>Duplicate. Turn off the visibility for this new layer for just a minute, though, and go back to your original seahorse layer. Give your original seahorse an Image>Sharpen>Sharpen (this is entirely optional... see what you think before and after this step) and set its layer blend mode to Soft Light.
18. Activate the duplicated seahorse layer now, and go to Colors>Adjust>Brightness and Contrast. Zoom both sliders all the way to the left, so that your copy of the seahorse becomes black. Go to Image>Resize and choose 80% of original, but make sure that Resize All Layers is unchecked. Now grab the mover tool and position that black shadow below and to the left of your original seahorse... just eyeball it until it looks natural to you. Then turn the opacity slider on that layer down to 11.
19. If you would like to add a fish, as I did, add a new raster layer. Choose the Picture Tube tool with the fish and set the scale to 40. Click a fish (sounds like a carnival game, eh?) and set him aswim far away from your seahorse. If you confine the fish to the dark side of your graphic, the drop shadow doesn't really matter. Once you have your fish settled in, set the blend mode for that layer to Soft Light and bring the opacity for that layer down to 24.
And there you have it. If you've followed the steps exactly as I've written them, your finished layer palette should look suchly: (I know it isn't even a word, but it sure grows on you, doesn't it? Much like fungus on those forgotten cheese slices way in the back of the fridge.)
I hope you had fun with this tutorial. There are lots of neat things you could add to this graphic, such as a half-buried treasure chest, rusty Volkswagon, barber pole or meat slicer... give your imagination a day pass and see where it takes you! lol!
Also, your original Sine Blob (or maybe create your own?) will dictate the finished hightlights on the ocean floor, so you can always experiment with that.
If you have any questions or if I zigged when I should have zagged... please don't hesitate to email me and I'll help any way that I can. Thanks for hangin' in!! :)
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©2003 Just Mousing Around
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