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Step 1

Start by creating a new image 400 X 400 with a white background.

On the Materials palette, set your Foreground color to #71757E and your Background color to Transparent:

On the Tools toolbar, select the Pen Tool (V)

On the Tool Options palette, set the following Mode: Draw Lines and Polylines, Connect Segments and Show Nodes should be checked. Set the Width to 80:

Click on the Line Style drop-list, and click Round.

NOTE: If you do not have "round" in your drop down list as a selection, you may create it as a custom line by following the steps outlined in Step 1 of our Signature Plates tutorial.

We're ready to begin.

Step 2

Before we begin let me explain that we want to allow plenty of room here. I'm going to start creating the pattern on the upper left had side of the canvas. The only reason is for the final image that we will create at the end of this tutorial. With this in mind, try and visualize what your trying to create before you actually start to create it. Because we have such an open space to work with, the tendency is going to be to make the chain link to long. It may take you a couple of tries to keep everything proportionately correct, but you'll get the hang of it very quickly.

Were ready to create our pattern. Starting from the top of the canvas, hold down the Shift key on your keyboard (this will help keep a straight line) and draw a line downwards the length that you want your chain to be.

TIP: If you look very closely at the image you'll notice two small square boxes. One is an outline of a box and the other is filled. These are the nodes. The active node is the box that is filled. You can use your UP and DOWN arrow keys on your keyboard to adjust the height of your image if need be:

Layers > Convert to Raster Layer

Selections > Select All [Keyboard shortcut: CTRL + A]

Selections > Float [Keyboard shortcut: CTRL + F]

Selections > Defloat [Keyboard shortcut: CTRL + Shift + F]

Selections > Modify > Contract... > Number of pixels: 25 > Okay.

The idea here is to keep contracting the selection until it looks as though you have three equal parts across the middle portion of the image:

On the Tools toolbar, highlight the Selection Tool (S) icon:

It doesn't matter which of the tools themselves are chosen. If you hold down your LEFT mouse button you have the ability to move the inside portion of the image within the selection. If you hold down the RIGHT mouse button, you move only the selection. Nothing of the image is touched. We want to move the inner portion of our image to the side of our original image.

With that explained, hold down the LEFT mouse button and and placing your mouse cursor anywhere inside of the selection, move it to the side of the original image (if the center of the image didn't move.. try your other left). You should have something like this:

If you've already guessed it, that's going to represent the link portion of our chain. Simple huh? Now lets save a selection of both pieces to the Alpha Channel so we can apply our effects.

Selections > Select All [Keyboard shortcut: CTRL + A]

Selections > Float [Keyboard shortcut: CTRL + F]

Selections > Defloat [Keyboard shortcut: CTRL + Shift + F]

TIP: To give our image a nice crisp edge, we'll want to protect a 1 pixel outline of our image.

Selections > Modify > Contract... > Number of pixels: 1 > Okay.

Selections > Load/Save Selection > Save Selection To Alpha Channel... > Save

Don't deselect yet!

Step 3

Now lets add our effects. To make things faster were going to add our effects to both pieces at the same time.

Layers > New Raster Layer... > Ok

On the Materials palette,set your Foreground color to #121413

On the Tools toolbar, select the Flood Fill Tool (F) and fill the selection:

Layers > New Raster Layer... > Ok

Selections > Modify > Contract... > Number of pixels: 2 > Okay.

On the Materials palette,set your Foreground color to #7b7F82 and your Background color to #BFC8D1

On the Materials palette,click on the Foreground color and select the Gradient tab. Select the Foreground-background gradient and use the following settings:

On the Tools toolbar, select the Flood Fill Tool (F) and fill the selection:

IMPORTANT NOTE: You'll notice that the gradient itself stretched across both selections. For this tutorial it's intentional. We want both pieces to be similar in color, yet slightly different from each other, otherwise you would have to have a separate selection for both pieces.

Selections > Load/Save Selection > Load Selection From Alpha Channel... > Load.

Adjust > Blur > Gaussian Blur > Radius: 4 > Okay

Your image should now look similar to this:

Layers > New Raster Layer... > Ok

Selections > Load/Save Selection > Load Selection From Alpha Channel... > Load.

Selections > Modify > Contract > Number of pixels: 6 > Okay.

On the Materials palette,set your Foreground color to #E6EBEE and your Background color to #F8FDFF

On the Materials palette,click on the Foreground color and select the Gradient tab. Select the Foreground-background gradient and use the following settings:

On the Tools toolbar, select the Flood Fill Tool (F) and fill the selection:

Selections > Load/Save Selection > Load Selection From Alpha Channel... > Load.

Adjust > Blur > Gaussian Blur > Radius: 3 > Okay

Layers > New Raster Layer... > Ok

Selections > Load/Save Selection > Load Selection From Alpha Channel... > Load.

Selections > Modify > Contract > Number of pixels: 7 > Okay.

On the Materials palette,set your Foreground color to black (#000000)

On the Tools toolbar, select the Flood Fill Tool (F) and fill the selection:

On the Tools toolbar, select the Move Tool (M) and move the image upwards to create a fairly pronounced edge:

Now hit the Delete key on your keyboard.

Selections > Load/Save Selection > Load Selection From Alpha Channel... > Load.

Adjust > Blur > Gaussian Blur > Radius: 2 > Okay

Layers > New Raster Layer... > Ok

Selections > Load/Save Selection > Load Selection From Alpha Channel... > Load.

Selections > Modify > Contract > Number of pixels: 7 > Okay.

On the Materials palette,set your Foreground color to white (#FFFFFF)

On the Tools toolbar, select the Flood Fill Tool (F) and fill the selection:

On the Tools toolbar, select the Move Tool (M) and move the image downwards towards the opposite corner:

Now hit the Delete key on your keyboard.

Selections > Load/Save Selection > Load Selection From Alpha Channel... > Load.

Adjust > Blur > Gaussian Blur > Radius: 1.5 > Okay

Selections > Select None

On the Layers palette, turn off the visibility for the Background layer:

Layers > Merge > Merge Visible

Turn the Background layer visibility back on:

Your image should now look similar to this:

Step 4

Now let's separate the chain and the link. We'll put the link on it's own layer. This next step will show you how you can separate elements that are on the same layer onto their own separate layers.

On the Layers palette, highlight the Merged layer:

On the Tools toolbar, select the Selection Tool (S)

On the Tool Options palette, set Selection type: Rectangle

Draw a rectangular selection around the link:

Click anywhere on the "link" image itself. Once you do this, you'll notice that your selection has taken the shape of your image:

This means that the selected portion of our image is now floating above the layer. You'll also notice when you look at your Layers palette it now shows a Floating Selection:

Note: Think of it like this... Float "pick it up", Defloat "put it down" and Select None "drop everything". Just use this for Psp, it doesn't sound right yelling "Kids, DEFLOAT!" :))

On the Layers palette, select the Merged layer:

Layers > New Raster Layer... > Ok

Selections > Select None

Your link is now on it's own layer allowing us to be able to manipulate the pieces individually.

On the Tools toolbar, select the Move Tool (M)

Arrange your images to form a chain link :