You can paint, draw, or fill patterns to create interesting effects. Paint Shop Pro includes many patterns (such as bricks, stained glass, and zebra stripes). You can create your own as well. You can also use an entire image or part of an image as a pattern.
Patterns are a great way to add creative flair to your images. You can apply patterned brush strokes, create objects with patterned fills or edges, and create patterned text. You can use patterns to create stationary to use when sending e-mail or to create tiled images for Web pages. Patterns are especially helpful for projects that require an interesting background such as a CD covers, calendars, or greeting cards. You choose patterns on the Patterns tab of the Material Properties dialog.
Important: Patterns are available for greyscale and 16 million color images only. To increase the color depth of an image, see Increasing the Color Depth of an Image.
To choose a foreground or background pattern:
On the Materials palette, do one of the following:
To choose a foreground pattern, click the Foreground Material box.
To choose a background pattern, click the Background Material box.
The Material Properties dialog opens.
Click the Pattern tab.
Click the Pattern Type drop-down list and select a type of pattern.
Select the options for the pattern:
Angle The angle (or direction) of the pattern, from 0 to 359 degrees. You can also click and drag the control needle on the pattern to change the angle.
Scale The scale from 10 to 250 percent of the image's actual size. At smaller values, the image is repeated more frequently throughout the pattern. At larger values, the image may be cropped and may lose detail and become blurry.
To save this pattern as a swatch that you can access later, click the Add to Swatches button, type a name, and press Enter.
Click OK.
To use an image as a pattern:
Open the image you want to use.
To select a part of the image as the pattern, make a selection in the image.
Follow the same steps as above for choosing a pattern and choose the image from the Pattern Type drop-down list. If the image has a selection, the selection rather than the entire image is available as a pattern.
To create a new pattern:
Create an image (in Paint Shop Pro or another application).
Save the image as a file in the Patterns folder of the Paint Shop Pro program folder, or in the My Documents/My PSP Files/Patterns folder.
Note: To change the default location of pattern files, on the Material Properties dialog click the File Locations button located in the Pattern drop-list. See, Setting File Locations.
Understanding Color and Color Models
How Monitor and Print Colors Differ
Making a Palette Color Transparent