PhotoScape Tutorial
Before You Begin...
- Download and install PhotoScape. It's free, and easy to use. :-)
We recommend you download this version rather than more recent ones which are bundled with an annoying advertising program. Plus, it's the version we used for this tutorial, so the instructions might make more sense. ;-)
Just click the large green button that says Download This Version (on the right side of the page near the top), and you'll be good to go!
Or if you'd rather download the most current version, that's cool, too. Whatever works best for you. :-) - The illustrations in this tutorial have been resized to try to keep the text and the pics for each step on the same screen as much as possible, so you don't have to scroll around quite so much and keep losing your place.
If you need to enlarge an image so you can see the details better, just click on it. And if you need an even larger version, click again. :) - You'll need these pics for the tutorial. So go ahead and copy them to your hard drive, and you can rename them if you want. :)
How to Create a Composite Image
- Open PhotoScape. Click Editor.
- Your screen should look something like this, with a directory tree of some kind in the upper left pane:
- Find the folder where you saved the images for this tutorial and click on it.
You should see a bunch of thumbnails for the contents of that folder in the lower left pane.
- Highlight the blue background square (which will be your base), and it should automatically appear in the middle of your work area.
Pretty small, huh? ;-)
If you need to enlarge it so you can better see what you're doing, just click the Zoom In icon until you find a size that's comfortable for you. It won't actually change the size of your userpic when you're done. It will just make it easier to see what in the heck you're doing while you're doing it. ;-)
Personally, I like to zoom in to 500% when creating userpics, because yes, I really am that blind as a bat, even with glasses. :-)
- Isn't this much better? :-)
Now let's start adding some pieces of clipart to our base.
Click the Object tab.
- Click the Photo icon (the one that looks like a teeny-tiny mountain scene).
- Select the Photo... option from the popup menu.
- The first time you add a new piece of clipart to your base image, you may need to scroll around a bit to find the folder you need.
Once you find it, highlight the yellow circle we're going to use for our Wilson-ized smiley face, and click Open.
- Click the 'X' in the upper right hand corner of the pop-up box to close it.
- Now let's add another piece of clipart to the mix, using the same process as before.
Click the Photo icon (the one that looks like a teeny-tiny mountain scene).
- Select the Photo... option from the pop-up menu.
- Highlight the smiley face and click Open.
- See how the smiley is bigger than the yellow circle?
Be not afraid! We'll fix that in a jiffy. :-)
Right now, just click the 'X' in the upper right hand corner of the pop-up box to close it.
- Okily-dokily. Now this part is kinda hard to explain since my cursor doesn't show up in these illustrations. So I hope this makes sense. :-)
Click anywhere on the image you want to resize, which in this case, is the smiley face.
You should see a dotted line around it.
Now see those tiny white squares in the corners, and in the middle of each side? You're going to use those to help change the size and/or dimensions of your image.
In this case, we want to make the smiley face a little smaller. So position your mouse over any of the corner squares until your cursor changes shape to something like looks like a small diagonal line with an arrow at each end.
Now left-click, and drag the square toward the center of your image that you want to reduce.
In this example, I used the square in the upper left hand corner, and dragged my mouse down and toward the right.
- And I wound up with something like this, where the smiley face has slipped off his head a bit. Oops! :-)
- Fortunately, there's a very easy way to fix that.
Click anywhere within the dotted-line around the smiley face, and your cursor should change shape to something that kinda looks like a plus sign with an arrow at each end.
Left-click, and drag the smiley face back onto his head. Whew! :-)
- Okay, now that you know how to add new images and how to resize them, go ahead and add both of the eyebrows, so your screen looks something like this:
- Hee! That kinda looks like he has horns coming out of his head, instead of looking like eyebrows.
But no hay problema!
Click on one of the eyebrows, and you should see a semi-circle looking thingy with an arrow at each end just above the dotted line.
Click on it, and your cursor should change shape to something like looks kinda like that annoying circle that goes round and round when a web page takes its own sweet time to load. :)
Now pull in a clockwise or a counterclockwise position, whichever way you want to rotate your image. Then rinse, lather, and repeat for the other eyebrow. :-)
- Now our screen looks more like this:
- Now let's add his tie.
Yay! We now haz a Smiley!Wilson. :-)
- Hmm...
*obsesses a bit*
You can't really see that much of the tie. So I made everything a little smaller, and scooted it up a bit.
There, much better!
When you're satisfied that you're done and are ready to save your work, click the Save button in the lower right hand corner.
- Select the Save As option from the pop-up box.
- You may get another popup box that says Do you want to enlarge and save the photo including the objects outside?
In most cases you probably don't.
For example, in this case, PhotoScape is just asking you, "Do you realize that part of Smiley!Wilson's tie extends past the blue background square, and are you really sure you want to whack off part of said tie like Cuddy did to that poor medical student back in season one?" :-)
And since we really do, you just click No.
- You should now get a pop-up box, where the file name automatically defaults to whatever the name of your base image is -- which in this case is the name of the blue background tile.
- If you want to give your userpic a different name, you can delete the default name and type in a new one.
Now click Save.
BONUS TIP: If you meant to save an edited image under a new file name, and forgot and accidentally overwrote the original, don't panic just yet. PhotoScape automatically creates an 'Originals' subfolder where you just saved the edited version, and stores a copy of the original. So check there first before you're tempted to crawl under your desk with a bag of chocolate and have a good cry. :)
- If you want to make absolutely sure you saved your userpic before you close your program, go to the folder where you told PhotoScape to save it.
See how happy Smiley!Wilson looks sitting there? :-)
You may also notice that there's a file called photothumb.db in your folder that wasn't there before. Don't worry about it. It's just a little something PhotoScape puts there to mark your place. That way if you're working with multiple images in the same folder, you don't have to keep scrolling all over the place to keep finding the same one over and over every time you want to add a new image to your project.
But if it bothers you, you can delete it once you've closed PhotoScape. :-)
- And now your Smiley!Wilson is ready for use!
