Colored Textures
or How To Colorize A Pattern The Easy Way

Download the entire tutorial for offline viewing

PSP 5 and 6 come with grey-scale paper patterns and textures that can be used to flood fill areas. The areas can then be colorized. I personally find the colorizing tools difficult to deal with. RGB values, or hue, saturation, lightness mean nothing to me, so deciding which slider to move and how far to get a color I want is a hopeless task.

There is another way to colorize using layers, patterns and solid flood fill, and layer opacity. This technique will work for most greyscale textures, and produce a desired color much easier than with the colorize tools.

final product

 The Final Product
image 1
 STEP 1 - Open a New Image

1) Click File then New

    On the New Image Window:

    Width = 200 Pixels
    Height = 100 Pixels
    Resolution = 72 Pixels/Inch
    Background Color = white
    Image Type = 16.7 Million Colors (24 Bit)
image 2
 STEP 2 - Set the Active colors

1) Click on the foreground color box.

    On the Color Dialog Window:

    Red = 139 Green = 179 Blue = 139 for pale green

2) Click on the background color box.

    On the Color Dialog Window:

    Red = 255 Green = 255 Blue = 255 for white
layer palette toggle
(1)

add new layer
(2)

 STEP 3 - Add a new layer

If you are not used to working in layers, this is a perfect chance to start. By putting your selection and donut circle on a new layer, it will be so much easier to tinker with background colors and effects after the donut circle is done. I'll show you that at the end of the tutorial.

1) If your Layers Palette is not open, click on the Layers Palette toggle button in the top toolbar

2) Click on the add new layer icon on the Layers Palette. Call the new layer button
selections tool.gif
(1)

colorize-textures/tools control toggle
(2)

selection
(3)
 STEP 4 - Select an area for the button

1) Click on the Selections Tool in the toolbar to activate it.

2) If the Tools Control Box is not open, open it by clicking on the Tools Control toggle in the main menu

3) Double click on the Selections Tool in the left toolbar to open the precise selections window. Set the values to

    left = 25
    right = 175
    top = 25
    bottom = 75
    Click the OK button

By using the precise selection window, you can control exactly what rectangular or square area is selected.
marble texture
(2)

floodfill tool
(3)

patter source
(4)

 STEP 5 - Flood fill the area with a texture

1) From the menu choose File | Open

2) Open the file called marble.tex It will be in the PSP 6 folder called Textures

3) Click on the Floodfill tool to select it. In the Fill Style choose Pattern. Leave the rest of the values as is for the defaults.

4) Click on the pattern tab in the floodfill tool control box to select the pattern. In the Pattern Source choose marble.tex

5) Flood fill the selected button area with the texture.

texture flood
green-fill
 STEP 6 - Add the color layer

1) Leave the button area selected.

2) Add a new layer just like in Step 3. Call it Color.

3) Click on the Floodfill tool to select it. In the Fill Style choose Solid Color. Leave the rest of the values as is for the defaults.

4) Flood fill the selected area with the foreground color. It will completely cover the texture with the green. 5) Save your image as a psp file.
opacity

 STEP 7 - Adjust the layer opacity to colorize the marble

The opacity or heaviness of individual layers can be adjusted for different effects.

1) On the layers palette, adjust the opacity slider bars, first for the green to make it more translucent, and then for the marble texture to remove some of the darkness. Play with the settings until you find something you like.
final product

 STEP 8 - Apply some effects

1) Use PSP, BladePro or some other plugin to apply effects to the button.