STEP 1
Open a new, transparent image, 200 x 200 pixels. Flood fill with white. For the petals of the flower, select gradient for both foreground and background styles, and set both to Nanson's Fire Pink gradient (mqc Fire Pink) - or another gradient of your choice. For all gradients in this tutorial, I used the "Linear Gradient" Style, with Angle = 45 degrees, and Repeats = 0.
Select the Drawing tool with the following settings:
Type (Bezier Curve), Width (2), Line Style (#1 Solid) Antialias CHECKED,
Create as vector CHECKED, Close path UNchecked
Before we start, let's just review some information about Bezier lines! Bezier lines are curved lines that are composed of 2 endpoints, and 2 control points. To create a Bezier curve, you first set the line by clicking on the canvas at the point where you want the curve to start (point A), and then dragging to where you want the curve to end (point B):
Bezier1
The curve is created by clicking the mouse away from the line 2 times - the first of these clicks, or control points (point C), sets the angle and target point from the start of the line:
Bezier2
The second control point (point D) sets the angle and target point from the end of the line:
Bezier3
When you release the mouse at point D, the line is formed:
Bezier4
Each of the 2 control points (C & D) can be modified as it is made by dragging the mouse BEFORE releasing it! There's a control handle at each control point - you can see this handle most clearly in diagram Bezier3 above, at point C. Note, however, that you can ONLY use the control handle to alter the location of a control point BEFORE you release the mouse button at that control point - once you've released the mouse button, the point is set, or fixed.
For the petals of our flower, we will, in effect, set the starting and ending points of our line at the same location! We do this by double-clicking once on the canvas - that's both points A and B! Do that now, at a point near the center of the canvas.
Note: You do not have to add a layer before drawing your flower petal as we are going to create it as a vector object. PSP will automatically generate a new vector layer for it!
In the image below, the purple arrow points to the "line", or points A & B, where I double-clicked. You won't see anything on your canvas after you double-click!Now, set the first control point by clicking once above the "line", to its left - you can modify the curve at this point by dragging the mouse BEFORE releasing it:
Set the second control point by clicking above the line, to its right - modify the curve by dragging the mouse BEFORE releasing it:
When you release the mouse, you should get a flower petal that looks something like this:
This is the basic petal - we'll construct the entire flower from this petal! You can adjust it, stretch it, fatten it, whatever changes you would like to see using the handles on the bounding box. You might even want to enter node edit to alter its shape somewhat!
Note: If you want a petal that's perfectly symmetrical, here's what you can do! Watch the status bar when you begin your Bezier curve. The starting coordinates are listed when you double-click! When you set the first control point, both the starting coordinates and the coordinates of this control point are listed:
In this instance, I double-clicked at (100,100), and then set my first control point at (50,30).
You can make your curve perfectly symmetrical by noting the 3rd set of numbers, those following the equal sign (50 x 70 in the example above). After you release and move away from the first control point, these numbers will remain visible on the status bar. When you click for the second control point, drag until you have the same values after the equal sign before releasing! If you do not drag on the second control point, all you will see on the status bar is the set of coordinates where you clicked - the rest of the information becomes available as you begin dragging!
For the more-than-merely-curious among you, the third set of numbers on the status bar represents the displacement (horizontal by vertical) of the control point from the starting point. The next number is the aspect ratio of that displacement (width to height), and the last number is the angle of the displacement from the starting point, measured clockwise from a line drawn UP perpendicular to the starting point! The values appearing on the status bar while dragging for the second control point are similar, except the angle of the displacement is from the ending point, which is measured clockwise from a line drawn DOWN perpendicular to the ending point. Now, aren't you glad you asked?
All this information may come in handy someday - but for me, I use the vector bounding box and/or node edit to get what I want!
When you are satisfied with your petal, save your image.
STEP 2
To add a little shading to the petal, set your foreground style to solid, and color to a dark contrasting color - something a bit darker than the darkest part of your petal. I used #AD4355 for my shading. Add a new raster layer, naming it "shading". Change the Draw tool to Freehand line, with Create as vector UNchecked, and draw 2 lines as illustrated below:
We're going to do a little work on these lines now, blurring them and softening them until we get something we like! To prevent any of our modifications from "escaping" the flower petal, activate the flower petal layer, select the flower petal using the Object Selector tool, and choose Selections...From Vector Object. Now, activate the "shading" layer again, and apply a Gaussian Blur of about 1.8 - this will give us the basis on which to work!
I used the Retouch tool to spread the darker color until I had something I was happy with. You may find you're satisfied with your flower petal the way it looks now, or you may use other methods to blend the colors! Here's what I did! First of all, I selected the Retouch tool in Soften mode, with these settings:
Shape (Round), Size (11), Hardness (65), Opacity (70),
Step (30), Density (40), Mode (Soften)
After softening the edges of the blurred lines, I wanted to push more of the dark color up into the petal, so I changed to Push mode with these settings:
Shape (Round), Size (5), Hardness (10), Opacity (55),
Step (22), Density (25), Mode (Push)
I even tried Smudge mode, with these settings, to continue to blend the colors:
Shape (Round), Size (2), Hardness (50), Opacity (70),
Step (1), Density (50), Mode (Smudge)
Finally, I returned to Soften mode, same settings as before, and again softened all the edges of the darker lines. Here's what I ended up with:
Deselect now and save your work!
STEP 3
Now let's build the flower! Merge the "shading" layer with the vector petal layer, naming the merged layer "petal". Now create 4 more petals from this petal by duplicating the "petal" layer 4 times. Using the Deformation tool on each duplicate layer, rotate the petals until you have a 5-petal flower, like this:
Merge the 5 petal layers, naming the merged layer "flower1". Duplicate the "flower1" layer, and resize this layer by 50%. Duplicate the "flower1" layer again, resize the duplicate layer by 75%, and rotate this layer 30 degrees, either direction. You should now have something like this:
Wow - it's beginning to look like a flower, isn't it! You may want to sharpen the rotated and resized petal layers. I chose to leave my petals as is for a softer look, but if you do sharpen, Unsharp Mask with Radius = 1.5, Strength = 50, and Clipping = 5 is a good choice!
Save your work, and we'll add a few leaves!
STEP 4
Activate Layer1 - that should be your white background layer - and let's draw a leaf! Set the foreground style back to gradient. Select Nanson's Turf (mqc Turf) gradient - or any gradient of your choice - for both background and foreground! Choose the Drawing tool again, same settings as in Step 1, and draw a Bezier leaf in the same manner as we did the petal - double clicking to set the line, and then setting control point 1 above and to the left, and finally, control point 2, above and to the right! I made my leaf off to the left of the flower, just so I could see it better! Your leaf should look something like this:
Make a couple more leaves by duplicating this leaf layer. Use the bounding box, or node edit, if you wish, to reshape each one so that they are just a bit different. Rotate them, and move them into place behind the flower, like so:
When you are satisfied with your leaves, convert the leaf layers to raster and save your image.
STEP 5
I added a yellow center to my flower, using another of Nanson's gradients called Old Yella (mqc Old Yella). Select the Paint Brush tool to make the center, with these settings:
Shape (Round), Size (21), Hardness (6), Opacity (100),
Step (25), Density (100)
On a new raster layer at the top of the Layer Palette, make one dab with the Paint Brush tool in the center of the flower. Add Noise at 15%, Uniform, to the center, and add a small drop shadow with the following settings:
Vertical offset (0)
Horizontal offset (0)
Opacity (44)
Blur (21)
Shadow color (AD4355)
Note that I used the same dark contrasting shadow color here as I used for the shadows in Step 2 above. If you've used different colors for your flower, make the same adjustments here! Here's my flower with the center in place:
Save your image!
STEP 6
All that's left to do now is add some shadows to the petals and leaves. For the innermost petals, and the second layer of petals, I used the same drop shadow as above. Then, for the bottom petals, and each of the leaves, I used Eye Candy 4000 Shadowlab, with the following settings:
Center Offset Direction (0)
Center Offset Distance (14.26)
Overall Opacity (49)
Overall Blur (5.04)
Perspective Blur (44.89)
Color (black)
Draw Only Outside Selection CHECKED
You can achieve much the same effect using PSP's drop shadow with the following settings:
Vertical offset (2)
Horizontal offset (15)
Opacity (57)
Blur (21)
Shadow color (black)
Here's my completed flower:
And there you have it, a Bezier flower! Before you merge the layers on your flower and tube it, you might want to save it in PSP format so you can make additional flowers just by colorizing! The lilac flower in the opening image was made from the pink one, colorizing with Hue = 177 and Saturation = 111.
You're not restricted to oval petals and leaves, either! Use your imagination! For this last sample, I entered node edit on my Bezier curve petal, added a node at the top of the curve, changed the Node Type to Cusp (CTRL + X), and stretched the arms up a bit, like this, to form a heart-shaped petal:
I did much the same for the leaves, and then used a brown gradient for the center. To get this gold flower, I colorized with Hue = 22 and Saturation = 188:
Here's a very different type of leaf, also made with Bezier curves! I started with a vertical line for this one, with control points to the left and right of the line. In the following diagram, the endpoints of the original line are indicated as A and B, and the approximate location of the control points, as C and D:
Finally, here's a Bezier flowering plant growing in an urn, using variations of the leaves from above:
When you're finished with your flower, delete the white layer, merge visible layers, and tube it!
Have fun making Bezier flowers!
If you have any problems, comments, or questions, please do not hesitate to Email me.
