A couple days after Nerlens Noel announced he was going to offer his basketball services to the Kentucky Wildcats and John Calipari, a member that goes by funKYcat75 started a thread titled “Photoshop: Where in the Universe is/was Nerlens Noel?” Needless to say, I couldn’t resist creating something. I love the Cats, I love Paint Shopping and/or Photoshopping (whatever you want to call it).

It just so happens, at the time of reading that thread I was working on an Avatar tutorial featuring one our friends (Olivia) to post on here. I had already developed the basic technique, so I decided to throw something together featuring Nerlen Noel as an Avatar too. You got to remember, I literally threw this together in 30 minutes or so. I thought it would receive a few laughs and then be buried under the endless content that is posted daily to Rupp Rafters. I didn’t even bother watermarking the photo with a link or anything.

Fast Forward two days later and the original photo goes viral. I found it on countless websites, across Facebook, NBCSports and Nerlenes Noel’s twitter feed.  Needless to say, I really missed a good opportunity to promote  paintshopblog.com. Oh well, life goes on.  Honestly, I was just flattered the photo actually got the attention it did across the internet. You gotta love the power of the Big Blue Nation. BTW, there are several others in that same thread that caught the attention of Noel and other media outlets across the internet. I love our fan-base, and the passion we all share.

Fast forward a couple more days and I have  had numerous people ask me how I created the “Avatar Photoshop.”  Well, here is a step by step tutorial for everyone interested in learning how the effect was achieved, using Paint Shop Pro, not Photoshop. However, the effects can be applied using either program.

The Olivia Avatar tutorial I will be posting later is much more detailed compared to this, but I wanted to stay true the to original Noel “Photoshop” design for the following the tutorial. After all, it is the one that went viral.

Remember, like all my tutorials, I assume you have never used the program before and walk you through every step. If you are an experienced Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop user you will be able to follow along just by viewing the photos throughout the steps.

Lets get started!

Olivia Avatar

This is the project that I mentioned I was working on when discovering the Noel Thread. BTW, thank you Liv for allowing me to use your photo for the original “How to create an Avatar in Paint Shop Pro” tutorial that will be posted here at a later date.

YouTube Video

Reserved for youtube video of this project.

Step 1

Open the photo in Paint Shop Pro. (Image of Nerlens Noel can be found at http://www.hoopscapital.com/high-school-spotlight). Next, select the Freehand Selection tool and set the mode to point to point.

Step 2

Using the Freehand Selection Tool outline the body. Once the outline is complete, save the selection to the Alpha Channel. Rename the Alpha selection to “body outline.” Next, right click on the Background Layer in the Layers Palette and select Promote Selection To Layer.

Step 3

With the Promoted Selection layer active, select Adjust > Hue & Saturation > Colorize. Set Hue to 136 and the Saturation to 255(Or adjust to your liking). Finally, press CTRL+D to deselect the active selection. Rename the Promoted Selection layer to “skin coloring”

Step 4

Select the Freehand Selection Tool and outline Noel’s flat top. Press ‘delete’ on your keyboard to remove the selection. Press CTRL+D to deselect active selection.  Repeat the process for Noel’s jersey. Save the selection to Alpha Channel and rename it “jersey.”

Step 5

Create a New Raster Layer (Layers > New Raster Layer) and rename it “lips coloring.” Next, use the Free Hand Selection tool to out line the lips. Flood Fill the selection with color #315684. Set the blend mode to ‘overlay’ and lower the opacity to around 60 percent. If you want the lips darker or lighter increase/decrease the opacity accordingly.

Step 6

Next we will add the Avatar ears. The ears can be found here or you can search “Avatar Ears” using Google for different variations. Open the ears up in Paint Shop Pro. Right click the background layer in the layers palette and select Duplicate.  Next, toggle OFF the visibility on the background layer. Finally, click on the white background with the Magic Wand tool to select it. Next press ‘Delete’ on your keyboard to remove the white background on the duplicated layer.

Step 7

Use the FreeHand Selection tool to copy each ear. Select one of the ears, then go to Edit > Copy. Create two New Raster layers on the Avatar project and rename them  ‘Left Ear’ and ‘Right Ear’ and paste each ear in the newly created layers (Edit > Paste as New Selection). Press ‘D’ on your keyboard to pull up the Deform tool. Use the Deform tool (scale mode) to scale and position the ears. Finally, use the Freehand Selection tool to select the areas of the ear that overlap the Nerlen Noel’s face. Use the Delete key to remove the selections. TIP: Lower the opacity of the ears to make it easier to draw the selection around the contour of the face. Press CTRL+D to deselect active selections.

Step 8

Next we need to add some stripes. You can find both zebra Avatar stripes or tiger Avatar stripes patterns with a quick Google search. Either will work depending on your preference. Create a New Raster Layer and rename the layer to “face stripes.” Next, copy and paste the stripes on the “face stripes” layer. Set the blend mode to darken and the opacity to around 22. Use the deform tool (Press ‘D’) to scale and position the stripes. Repeat this process for the left and right arms too.

Step 9

Go to Selections > Load/Save Selection > Load Selection from Alpha Channel and load the “body outline” selection. Next, select Selections > Invert to invert the selection and press ‘Delete’ to remove that selection. Press CTRL+D to deselect.

Step 10

Using the Freehand Selection tool outline the jersey and press ‘Delete’ to remove any stripes that are visible on the jersey. Make sure you ‘Delete’ from all three stripe layers “left arm stripes,” “right arm stripes,” and “face stripes.” Finally, use the eraser brush to erase the stripes that are still visible in areas such as in the hair line, eyes, and lips. I lower the eraser brush opacity setting as I get closer to skin in order to create a blending effect.

Step 11

Now for the eyes. I have seen similar “Avatar Photoshops” use cat eyes. I ended up going with this human eyeball because I liked the color and detail. Use whatever suits your design tastes. Open the eye photo in Paint Shop Pro and use the Freehand Selection Tool to outline the eyeball. Copy the eyeball selection(Edit > Copy).  Create two New Raster Layers and rename them “left eye” and “right eye.” Paste (Edit > Paste as New Selection) the eyeball into each layer. Use the Deform tool(CTRL+D) to scale and position the eyeballs.

Step 12

Create two New Raster Layers and rename them “white freckles high” and “white freckles low.” Next, select the Paint Brush tool, set the Foreground and Background to white in the Material Properties. Apply some Round white brush strokes while occasionally varying the size of the brush to create the freckles. I placed them randomly over the face in the high layer, and the entire body on the low layer.

Step 13

Next, load the “body outline” from the Alpha Selection. Once loaded, select the Freehand Selection Tool and hold down “Shift” while you outline the ears. Hold shift allows you to add to the existing selections.

Step 14

Now that you have the body and ears in one selection, go to to Edit > Copy Special > Copy Merged. This will create a merged copy of all the layers within your selection.  OPTIONAL: Also, you might want to save the Noel project as a pspimage before proceeding for future reference, editing or adjustments.

Step 15

Find an Avatar Background and open it up in Corel Paint Shop Pro. Just search “Avatar Wallpaper” at Google Images to find the Avatar image you want to use.Create a New Raster Layer on the Avatar Background and rename it “noel avatar.” Next, Go to Edit > Paste as New Selection and paste the merged copy of Noel that we copied in the previous step. Use the Deform tool (CTRL+D) to resize and position.

Step 16

Next, merge down the “noel avatar” layer. After you merge, right click the “background” layer and select Duplicate. Rename the layer to “curves adjustment.” Now, apply the Curve Adjustment to the Blue Channel (push the curve slightly up) to balance the tone and contrast (Adjust > Brightness & Contrast > Curves). Lower the opacity of the “curves adjustment” layer until you are satisfied with the coloring. It looked best on my screen around 65 percent opacity.

Step 17

Finally, merge the two layers into one and this project is complete. Go to File > Save As and save to your favorite photo format.

Final Results.

Nerlins Noel Kentucky Recruit on Pandora (Higher Resolution version here). Kentucky opposition better Fear the Flattop

Let’s get started!

Step 1

Open the photo you will be using to create the silhouette.

Step 2

Make a selection around the object. Select the freehand selection and set the mode to point to point.  Place points around the object you want to cut out.  See this previous tutorial for a more in-depth guide on how to use the point to point selection tool.

Step 3

Next, save the selection to the disk channel.  Remember to name the selection for easy future reference. If you save it to the disk it will be stored on your hard drive and  will be available for any future projects. Optionally, you can save it to the Alpha Channel. The Alpha selection will only be saved within the pspimage of the photo your are working on.

Step 4

Now, go to Edit > Copy to copy the selection. Then go to Edit > Paste As New Image to paste the selection into a new image.

Step 5

Lower the brightness of the newly pasted image to -255 to create a black silhouette. Adjust > Brightness and Contrast > Brightness/Contrast. Note there are several ways to do this, and in the next step I am going to demonstrate how to apply different colors or even gradients to your silhouette.

Step 6 (Optional) How to apply more colors to your silhouette?

Create a New Raster Layer. Right click on Raster 1 (bottom layer) and select Create New Raster Layer (Raster 2). Select the Raster 2 layer and then go to Selections > Load/Save Selection > Load Selection from Disk Channel. Or choose Load Selection from Alpha Channel if you saved it there in step 3.  Note: If you need to reposition the loaded selection, just move your cursor inside the selection while holding down the right mouse button to drag the selection to the position you want.

Step 7

Finally, flood fill the selection with any color, gradient or pattern you want. Note: Create a New Raster Layer for each color.

BTW, it is hard to believe these women are all in their mid to late 30′s at the time this photo was taken.  You all look incredible.

Let’s get started!

Reserved for Youtube video!

I will be posting a video demonstration of this exact tutorial as soon as I get a chance to upload it!

Step 1

Open the photo that you want to swap faces on.

Step 2

Select the Freehand Selection tool and set the mode to Point to Point.

Step 3

Make a selection around the face and copy it (Edit > Copy). The selection doesn’t have to be perfect because will be using the eraser tool to blend it over-top the other face.

Step 4

Next, select Edit > Paste as New Layer. Press CTRL + D to deselect, now rename the layer to Original Face Cutout. Duplicate it twice (only once if you are swapping one face) and then rename the duplicates to Right Face and Left Face. Toggle the visibility off of the face cutouts you are not using.

Step 5

Use the move tool to roughly position the visible cutout face layer (left face for this example) over the face you will be swapping (Press M on keyboard to activate Move tool ).

Step 6

Next, Press D to activate the deform tool. Set deform mode to SCALE, and use the drag handles to align and size the face. NOTE: Lower the opacity some to help you align the face orientation properly. Aligning the eyes usually will get you the correct orientation.

Step 7

Turn the opacity back up to 100% once you have the face layer aligned where you want it. Next, select the eraser tool and set eraser settings similar to what you see in the photo below. You may have to use a different eraser brush size depending on the size of your photo.

Step 8

Use the eraser tool and slowly remove and/or blend the unwanted areas of the visible face cutout layer. If you make a mistake and remove too much, just click Edit > Undo to undo the mistake.

Step 9

Just repeat the process if you are swapping two or more faces.

Step 10

I went ahead and swapped out all their faces.

Final Results!

The Triplets!

Regardless the damage was done and I was panicking. I knew if lost my wife’s work and memories she would kill me (not literally), but she would have been upset and put me on the couch if I botched something as simple as a backup. Without hesitation I immediately started researching file recovery programs. At first, I was pessimistic about successfully recovering any of these files because I never had much luck with file recovery programs in the past, especially the free ones.

While reading through reviews of the best free file recovery programs I came across Recuva, a free utility from Piriform (the makers of CCleaner) that is also spyware free. I have used CCleaner for years to help keep my computers clean and “running like a top.”  Admittedly, I started feeling really optimistic after I discovered it was developed by Piriform and after reading through nothing but positive reviews. BTW, I highly recommend CCleaner if you haven’t tried it either.

Anyway, I quickly discovered Recuva is a extraordinary piece of software that could literally be a job-saver or marriage-saver It successfully recovered every one of the 4000+ files that I deleted with ease in less than 10 minutes.  Out of curiosity, I went ahead and run a few extra tests. I recovered countless purposely deleted files with a 100 percent success rate. Recuva also easily recovered files deleted from the recycled bin too. I was even able to delete and recover files deleted directly from our digital camera cards. I tested SD cards and USB sticks. It even recovered deleted mp3′s deleted from my Ipod running rockbox firmware. The developers claim it will recover files deleted by viruses and computer crashes too. I also liked how it allowed me to save the restored files to a mapped network drive. While not necessary, it is important to write as little as possible to a drive that has files on it that you need to recover. For this reason, I chose to restore my files to a networked drive. If you don’t have a mapped networked drive you can restore to external usb drives, sd cards, etc. You can restore to the same hard drive the files were deleted from, but you run the risk of overwriting the already deleted files.

While this software is not directly related to Paint Shop Pro, it is still impressive and relative to photography. I felt I needed to share this because someone out there may be in a similar mishap. Possibly, someone accidentally deleted their pspimage projects or deleted their babies photos and desperately need to recover them? Whatever it is you deleted, this program can help you recover it at a high success rate (100%  success rate for me so far). Below I will walk you through the installation and the recovery process.

Step 1

Click this link below to download Recuva. The program is compatible with any PC  running Microsoft Windows 98 or higher. http://www.piriform.com/recuva/download. Once downloaded go ahead and install it.

Step 2

Once installed, right click “Run the program as Administrator” if you are using Windows 7 for Vista. You will be presented the Recuva Wizard.

Step 3

Select the file type, the drive, or the specific folder you want to recover. I recommend scanning the whole drive drive and then previewing the deleted files. Note: To recover pspimage or a RAW extension you may need to select the other file types. I had to use this option to recover the NEF, PSPIMAGE, and PSD extensions. The recover pictures option only recovered common photo extensions such as JPEG and BMP. Don’t worry, you can repeat the process as many times as you need for different file types.

Step 4

I didn’t enable deep scan as it wasn’t necessary. Recuva found all the deleted files without any errors or problems.

Step 5

Once the scan completes select the photos you want to recover. You can preview the deleted files and select them individually or you can select every one of the deleted files at once. To select all the deleted files hit CTRL+A to select all the files at once and check mark one of the photos, or you can switch to advanced mode which has a toggle to select every file.

Step 6

After you select your files for recovery, press the recover button. Recuva will ask you where you want to save your recovered files. As I mentioned previously, I selected a mapped network drive. I recommend using an external drive, a different partition,  or a networked drive to prevent the deleted file area of the hard drive from being overwritten in the restore process. This is not necessary, but Recuva will warn you that restoring to the same drive may interfere with successful recovery.

Step 7

Success, Recuva successfully recovered 4,000 of my deleted file types without error.

Happy Recovering!

Once you install the Microsoft Camera Codec Pack you will have thumbnail previews, and you will be able to open in Microsoft Photo Viewer (just like a jpeg) simply by double clicking. This codec pack will quickly allow you to find the photos/shots that you want to edit. *See below for direct download link.

I am sure there are other simpler solutions out there, but this a simple solution that works great for me. Hopefully, someone else will find this helpful as I did.

Previewing RAWS before without codec pack

I had to open each NEF(my wife shoots with Nikon’s) individually in Corel Paint Shop Pro or Adobe Photoshop.

Previewing RAWS after installing Nikon.

You can now preview and double click view now just like you would a jpeg.

According to Microsoft this codec supports the following camera formats

• Canon: EOS 1000D (EOS Kiss F in Japan and the EOS Rebel XS in
  North America), EOS 10D, EOS 1D Mk2, EOS 1D Mk3, EOS 1D Mk4, EOS 1D Mk2
  N, EOS 1Ds Mk2, EOS 1Ds Mk3, EOS 20D, EOS 300D (the Kiss Digital in Japan
  and the Digital Rebel in North America) , EOS 30D, EOS 350D (the
  Canon EOS Kiss Digital N in Japan and EOS Digital Rebel XT in North America),
  EOS 400D (the Kiss Digital X in Japan and the Digital Rebel XTi in North
  America), EOS 40D, EOS 450D (EOS Kiss X2 in Japan and the EOS Rebel
  XSi in North America), EOS 500D (EOS Kiss X3 in Japan and the EOS
  Rebel T1i in North America), EOS 550D (EOS Kiss X4 in Japan, and as
  the EOS Rebel T2i in North America), EOS 50D, EOS 5D, EOS 5D Mk2, EOS
  7D, EOS D30, EOS D60, G2, G3, G5, G6, G9, G10, G11, Pro1, S90
• Nikon: D100, D1H, D200, D2H, D2Hs, D2X, D2Xs, D3, D3s, D300,
  D3000, D300s, D3X, D40, D40x, D50, D5000, D60, D70, D700, D70s, D80, D90,
  P6000
• Sony: A100, A200, A230, A300, A330, A350, A380, A700, A850, A900,
  DSC-R1
• Olympus: C7070, C8080, E1, E10, E20, E3, E30, E300, E330, E400,
  E410, E420, E450, E500, E510, E520, E620, EP1
• Pentax (PEF formats only): K100D, K100D Super, K10D,
  K110D, K200D, K20D, K7, K-x, *ist D, *ist DL, *ist DS
• Leica: Digilux 3, D-LUX4, M8, M9
• Minolta: DiMage A1, DiMage A2, Maxxum 7D (Dynax 7D in Europe,
  ?-7 Digital in Japan)
• Epson: RD1
• Panasonic: G1, GH1, GF1, LX3

Direct Download Link

Is available in 32bit and 64bit Windows 7 and/or Windows Vista w/ SP2

Download directly from Microsoft HERE.

If you are new to Paint Shop Pro and would like to replicate any of these, then I suggest working through some my tutorials to familiarize yourself with the Paint Shop Pro interface and tool-sets. As I have mentioned before, I am by no means a professional graphic artist but I do enjoy sharing my ideas and teaching others techniques I use.

This past fall and winter I coached 20 C team(3rd and 4th graders) South Floyd Raider football players. My oldest son also played for the team so my wife was constantly snapping pictures of all the players. All the boys and girls played hard for me and it was great experience coaching them. To show my appreciation for them, I decided to create every player on the team their own 20×10 football collage that they could have printed to hang on their walls.

These football collages were in Paint Shop Pro using gradient background(s) with various cutouts for photo placement. I then applied several new layers that consisted of mostly text, simple graphics, and player cutouts. If you want to learn how to create photo cutouts then refer to this tutorial. The mirror effects are created simply by creating a duplicate layer of text and then flipping it (Image> Flip or Ctrl+I).  After it is flipped simply drag the text directly under the original text and lower the opacity.

The basic template

The Raiders text is purposely off center to make room for a player cutout.

Sample Layers

Originally, I was going to upload the pspimage and psd template of this project, but the last time I shared a sports template on here, I later found them for sale on ebay. They didn’t even bother removing the photos of my son either.

Scaled down football collage variations

Like I mentioned previously, I created one for each of my 20 players. I used about four different variations in the template for every player. Here is a few of the finished collages sized down considerably.

Template Sample

This sample is obviously significantly scaled down. The original template is 20 x 10 inches. This template looks great in a 10 x 20 frame once you add your photos. *Download links available at the bottom of this post.

Template Without Photos

All you need to do is open the cake smash pspimage template and paste your images into the appropriate labeled layer. Then re-size them to fit. Tip: Use the deform tool to re-size the pictures once you paste them in the correct layer. Next press CTRL+D on your keyboard to pull up the deform tool and set the mode to scale.

Cake Smash Download Links

NOTE: The template downloads are contained in a zip file. Unzip before using.

Click to download the Paint Shop Pro pspimage.

Click to download the Photoshop PSD.

Step 1

Go to http://www.botproductions.com/pspthumb/index.html and download the version for your Windows version. For example, if you are using a 64 bit Windows make sure to download the x64 edition, otherwise download the 32bit version that matches your Windows version.

Step 2

Install PSP Thumbnail Handler and reboot Windows.

Step 3

If your pspimage thumbnails are still not showing up after the reboot, then you need to follow the next couple of steps.

Step 4

Click Organize > Layout, and then check “Menu bar” on.

Step 5

Next, Go to Tools > Folder Options, and click the View Tab. Make sure “Always show icons, never thumbnails”  is unchecked.

Step 6

Click on the “change your view” button in the top right corner and set the preview to Medium Icons or larger. Currently, does not work in Small Icons view.

Finally we have Paint Shop Pro Thumbnail previews.

Simply install the plug-ins to your Paint Shop Pro plug-in directory. If you are not sure how to do this please refer to this previous tutorial for more detailed instructions. The download is available at the bottom of this page.

Alphaworks

This plugin for Paint Shop Pro turns your photo to black and white, then it allows you to either remove the black or the white value from the photo, using 6 different settings. I like using it to create masks. It is also fun creating surreal looking photo effects. For example, after you remove the white or black, copy the layer, and apply it on top of another image. (Free stock Surreal Background located here.)

ColourWorks

Includes 20 different color adjustments and enhancements.

EdgeWorks

This includes 20 different edge effects. Great for creating “cartoon like” and other cool edge effects in  Corel Paint Shop Pro.

ScreenWorks

This is one of my favorite Paint Shop Pro plugins. It allows you to quickly create “scanline” effects on your images. There are 30 different effects included.

EmbossWorks

Includes 30 embossing effects.

SwapShop

Includes 15 filters to switch color combinations. This plug-in is fun to play around with, however, Corel Paint Shop Pro’s built-in Hue and Saturation tools are far superior.

Masterblaster

Create easy color overlays. Includes 20 adjustable filters.

Mezzy

15 grain and mezzo effects.

More Information and Download Link Below

http://www.cybia.co.uk/theworks.html

Step 1

Download and open up the rubix cube photo in Corel Paint Shop Pro.

Step 2

Go to Adjust > Hue and Saturation > Hue/Saturation/Lightness and lower the Saturation to -100 to remove all the color from the rubix cube. Once that is complete go ahead and create a new raster layer, and rename it “Blue Side.”

Step 3

Open and copy (Edit > Copy) the photo you want to apply to the Blue Side layer. Once copied, paste it in on the Blue Side layer by going to Edit > Paste as New Selection. Press Ctrl to Deselect. Press ‘D’ on your keyboard to pull up the deform tool, set the deform mode to scale and use the anchor points to scale the photo to roughly the size of the blue rubix cube side. You can also uniformly resize/scale the image using the Scale X and Y values in the deform scale toolbar. Press ‘M’ on your keyboard to activate the move tool to roughly move the photo into position.

Step 4

Lower the opacity of the Blue Side layer so that you can easily align the anchor points. Press ‘D’ on your keyboard to pull up the Deform tool. Set the deform mode to Shear. You will notice 8 anchor points around your image. You will use the anchor points to align your image to the blue side, or any other object for that matter. For example, take the top right corner anchor, and drag it to the top right corner of the blue side of the rubix cube. Next, take the top left hand corner of the anchor and drag it to the top left hand corner of the blue side. Do the same for the bottom two corners. Once complete, turn the opacity back to 100 and change the blend mode to Overlay. Note: Use the eraser brush to brush away any excess or parts of the image you don’t want visible. For example, the edges of each individual cube.

Step 5

Create a new layer and rename it Yellow Side and repeat steps 3 and 4.

Step 6

Create a new layer and rename it Red Side and repeat steps 3 and 4.

Final Results

Click to view full. The rubix quote I applied is from Brian Cramer.