Paint Shop Pro Tutorials: Creating Translucent Elements

These two tutorials use a technique that I came up with when I couldn't find a Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop tutorial explaining how to create this kind of effect. Just turning down the opacity of the layers resulted in a faded image which wasn't what I wanted. I came up with the idea of using a special mask that makes every other pixel translucent. By keeping the rest of the pixels opaque, the objects don't look faded. 

I've included all of the supplies that you'll need, as well as the PDF tutorials at the download link below.

CLICK HERE

This is what my translucent mask looks like:

It probably looks like a solid gray square but, if you look very closely, you'll see that it's made up of gray and white dots. There are three different versions of the translucent mask included in the ZIP file. Which one you use for your project will depend on how light or dark your image is.

The first tutorial shows how to edit a picture of an embroidered piece of fabric so that the background behind it to shows through as in the example at the top of this post.

Click HERE to go to the site where I found the flower embroidery images. When you first open that page you'll just see what look like blank folders with "Kensitas Flowers" on the front. You'll have to click the folders one at a time to get to what's inside of those folders. They apparently enclosed the embroideries inside those little folders to protect them inside the cigarette packages. Once you click a folder, you should see thumbnails of the contents on the right hand side of the page. Click the little flower thumbnails to view them and click them again to see a larger view. They'll be the size of the ones I used for my tutorial.

Here is another example:

The second tutorial explains how to edit a photo of a piece of jewelry so that the background behind it is visible through the gem as in this example: