Picture Tubes

Creating picture tubes for Paint Shop Pro is another fairly simple process. If you are creating tubes in Paint Shop Pro 6, I don't believe they will work in Paint Shop Pro 5. If however, you are creating tubes in Paint Shop Pro 5, there is a utility in Paint Shop Pro 6 to convert your version 5 tubes to version 6. I have not tried this utility so I can't testify to it's ability to convert the tubes.

The first thing you need to start making a tube is the image you want to use for the tube. I quickly created some buttons for the purpose of this tutorial. When I created a new image to start the buttons on, I set the background to transparent. You can do that from the create new image dialog. I then created my buttons and made sure that when I was done with them there were no selections and that each image had only one layer. You will notice on the layer palette that when you create an image with a transparent background that the first layer is called layer 1 and there is no "background" layer.

I chose to create a tube with three cells of 100x100 pixels each.

Once you have your images ready you need to set up your preferences for the size of your tube. Since I have already created my image for the tube at 100x100 pixels that is what I will set my grid to. You can get to these preferences from the File menu. File>Preferences>General Program Preferences and then click on the Rulers and Units tab. Set your grid size and click ok.

Now you need to create your tube image. Create a new image in the total size of your tube. Since I have three cells at 100x100 I'll create an image that is 300 pixels wide and 100 pixels high. If you do not see the grid on your image (for me the red lines) you can turn the grid on from the View menu. The image below is what my tube file will look like.

Now we have to save this image as a tube file. You do this from the File menu. File>Export>Picture Tube. The following dialog will appear. My tube is three cells across and one cell down so I set that in this dialog. I want the placement to be random so I leave that. I type in a name for the tube and click ok.

Now, I can start using my tube. I create a new image, select the Picture Tube tool and start clicking on my image. As you can see below, I now have a working button tube.

You can make larger images or smaller images. You can have only 1 cell across and down, or as many as you want. Something to keep in mind is the size of your tube. The more images, the larger the images, the larger the tube file and the more memory required to use it.

Also, if you are going to use clipart or some other type of ready made image, you will need to really clean the edges of the image good so that you don't have any renegade pixels when you go to use your tube. It's always a good idea to test your images on a white and a black background before creating your tube to be sure it will be a good clean tube.

Copyright Vikki Olds, All Rights Reserved