Master Smithy Mithrin's PSP Button Effect Tutorial

First of all we're going to do some math. To the right is the avatar we'll be working with in this tutorial. The original is an image by the artist Gerald Brom and I've cropped the image to a usable size. ;-) First thing we are going to do is determine the size of the avatar. I think you know how to do that so I won't explain it here but I'll give you the size right away. Our avatar is going to be 130 pixels wide and 200 high.

Now we are going to create a new image with exactly the same size as the Brom avatar to the right. Open Pic.1 and notice the button that I have circled with red. Click this button inside PSP. A new window will popup with all sorts of options. For now the only important options will be the width, height and unit selection. Make sure the unit is set to pixels and then set the width to 130 and the height to 200. Leave all other settings as they are and click OK. Notice that a new image appears called Image1. This is going to be your final avatar in the end though so far it's only a white image. On with the next step.

Yup, we're going to resize the original Brom avatar. You may wonder why this is needed. Well, we could simply apply the button effect to the original Brom avatar itself but that wouldn't look as good as the method that I will show you. We've just created a new image and we're going to apply the button effect to this image and then kind of paste the original avatar on top of it but we still want the button effect to be visible so that's why we need to shrink the original avatar a tiny little bit. In fact, we'll only be taking 10 pixels from both width and height. Pic.2 shows you how to select resize. First select the Brom avatar by clicking somewhere on it with the left mouse button and then use Pic.2 to see how you have to select the resize function. Single click on it. A new field will popup.

You're going to need only a few of the available options. Open Pic.3 and you'll see that I've put a red circle around the two fields that you are going to use. First the lower red circle is placed around the Lock Aspect ratio option. When selected this option automatically keeps the aspect ratio of the current image that you are working on but I suggest you unselect it since we're only going to apply some minor changes to the Brom avatar.
Then the second circle, the one at the top is put around the Pixel Dimensions field. Remember the original size of 130 x 200? Notice that I've cut 10 pixels from both width and height. Fill in these values and select OK and voila, the picture is resized to 120 x 190 pixels.

Now select the white picture again by clicking on it with the left mouse button. Then go to the upper bar and go to Effects, click on it and then from the roll down menu go to 3D effects and select buttonize. I believe you've done that before so that shouldn't be a problem. A new field will popup.

Open Pic.4 now. A few things are important here. First use the zoom out button until you get a good look on the entire picture in the preview window just as shown in the screenshot. The zoom out button is marked with an arrow.
Second make sure Transparent is selected. I've pointed an arrow at it. This setting is very important since it will smooth the button effect and colors. The solid option just uses one color with no smoothing. It creates a solid edge around the image. Notice the difference in the preview windows when you switch between these two settings.

Now to the left of the buttonize window you will see three bars; height, width and opacity. Height and width determine the height and the width of the buttonize field. I've set them both to 15 but just fool around with it a bit and look at the changes in the preview window so you know exactly what it does. Then there is the Opacity field. This one is also important. You can change the setting from 1 to 100. 100 means that the button effect will be applied with full force. 1 means that it will almost be invisible. For this avatar I've set it to hundred so the button effect will be clearly visible. Again try some different settings and look at the changes in the preview window to see the effect it has.
Now we come to the final part. Notice the color function with the little color bar below it. Click on it and a new window will popup. Also notice that your cursor now has changed to the Dropper icon. The dropper allows you to pick a color from an image or from the color palette and easy select it. Now go with your cursor over the original Brom avatar (you can move the new color window if it's positioned over the avatar by dragging it to the left or right) and you can select a color that you think will fit for the border that will be created once the button effect will be applied. For this avatar I've used a darker red brown from the avatar but you can choose any color. Click on it and then select OK. Notice now that the color bar has changed to the color you selected. Now you've applied all necessary changes and you can click on OK. The white image should now have the button border around it just as shown in Pic.5.

So now the button effect is finished. Next step is to copy the original resized avatar on top of the new image. First select the original Brom avatar again and right click on the image self and select Copy. (Pic.6) Now right-click on the new image and go to Paste and then Paste as new layer (Pic.7). Notice that the original avatar is automatically centered on top of the new image. Now we're almost there. The only thing left to do now is to merge these two images (layers) and make it one image because right now they are nothing but two images on top of each other. To merge both layers into one picture go to the top of the menu bar and select Layers the go to Merge on the roll-down menu and select Merge All (Flatten). Pic.8 shows exactly how to do this. You're done! The only thing left is to save the image.