What are Tubes?

Basically, tubes are images, created with a transpartent background, that can be used in a special way. They can be inserted into a image using the Tube tool. But what makes them special?

When applying a tube, you can adjust it's size when it's applied to your image. You can make a tube image larger or smaller than the actual image. You can even paint with a tool. Lets look at an example.

We will use the animals heads from the masks tutorial, and make them into tubes. You should have saved these 2 head images in *.psp format. If you did not, than you will have to go back and do that.

Open PSP and then open both *.psp file formats for the heads

Now, when I checked the image information for these 2 images, I leaned the tiger head was 139x153 pixels, and the lion head was 197x194.

I decided I wanted them to both be pretty much the same size, and went with the smaller size. So I re-sized the lion head 139X137 by first selecting the lion image and from the menu bar clicking Image/Resize and entering the first value (139 pixels). You want to make sure that the box Maintain Aspect Ratio is checked.

OK, now we're ready to get down to taking these 2 images and making tubes out of them.

Now both images are 139 pixels wide. We need to open a new image, transparent background, that will be wide enough to hold both images.

So we add the 139 width together and come up with 278. Lets add a little buffer and call it 280.

Next we need to consider the height. The tiger has the larger height, (153 pixels) and we want a little buffer, so we will call this 155. That will be the size we want out new image to be, 280X155 pixels, with a transparent background.

This is where it gets a little tricky. We need to apply a gird to our new image, to make it easier to copy our animal heads into it. But we need to make sure our grid is laid out correctly.

So, from the menu bar, select View/Change Grid and Guide Properties.

When the gride guide and properties box open

we want to make sure that units is set to pixels.

Next, we want to set the Horizontal spacing to 140. Why that size? Remember, our images are 139 pixels wide, and we are adding a 1 pixel buffer.

Vertical spacing will be 155, which is the height of our new image.

Line color can be whatevr you can see best, I used black.

Click OK. Now from the menu bar click View/Gudies and you will notice your new image has been broken down the middle with a guide line.

Now, select your tigers head. You will notice it also has a grid across it, but don't worry about that.

From the menu bar select Edit/Copy.

Now, select your new image, and from the menu bar select Edit/Paste/As New Selection

Position your tiger head inside the left side grid.

You will notice the marching ants around it, indicating it is a selection, so press CTRL and letter D to unselect it.

Now, do the same thing with the lion heads.

OK, now you have both images in what will now become your tube file.

So with your new image selected, from the menu bar click File/Export/Picture Tube.

When the Export Picture Tube box opens, fill in the settings.

Our tube file has 2 cells across right? 2 pictures across so enter 2 in that box.

There is only 1 row, so the cells down will be 1.

We want Placement mode and Selection mode to set set to random.

Finally, we want to give out tube file a name. I used animal heads.

Your new tube file will automatically be saved to the tubes folder. All thats left now is to go to the menu bar and click View and click grid again to turn off the grid from appearing in your images again.

Now, if you open a new image and select the Tubes tool

and open your control palette

and scroll through your tubes, you will see your new tube, animal heads displayed. Select that tube. You will see in the Tools Options box the default setting for the tube.

The scale is set to 100, which is the actual size of the image.

Play around a little and set the size down to say 30. Because we set the placement mode to random, sometimes the lions head will be applied, sometimes the tigers head.

But thats pretty much all there is to making a tube file. In this case we only used 2 images, but you can create tube files with al ot more then just 2 images.

Just a few rules of thumb to remember.

If you are making a tube file with 5 images, and each image is 100 pixels wide, open a new image that is a little wider then the combined width of all 5 images. If your images are all 100 pixels high, make sure your new image is a few pixels wider than that.

We want that little buffer in there, right?

When you are setting the grid values, your horizontal spacing should be a few pixels wider than your widest image, and the vertical spacing should be a few pixels higher then your higest image.

Make sure you Use the Ediy/Copy and Edit/Paste/As New Selection command.

A picture tube file MUST have a transparent background and only 1 layer. Thats why you Copy/Paste as New Selection and not as New Layer.

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