This tutorial will show you how do "age" a photo with the help of Paint Shop Pro in only a couple of steps. Although the screen shots are in German again it should be easy to follow the tutorial. Otherwise please use the e-mail link in the navigation bar on the left to let me know.

I used on of the photos that come with PSP8 to do this tutorial. You find it at c:\program files\jasc software\Paint Shop Pro 8\Examples.

Open the above mentioned picture and promote the Background layer to a raster layer. To do this, click "Layers" / "Promote to Layer".

Then you add the Mask layer by clicking "Layers" / "Add Mask Layer" / "From Picture":

A new window opens in which you chose our picture and press OK.

Please make sure that you keep the lower raster layer selected in the layer palette, and add a new layer on top of it:

This has the effect of having added a layer between the original picture layer and the mask layer. And we want to fill that new layer.

In the material palette chose "pattern" as style and the filling "rice paper 05" (this is a direct translation from the German version of PSP8 and may be different from the English version). It's important to have "all tools" tagged.

Now activate the flood fill tool , check again whether the middle layer is selected, and fill it. The result (below) looks a bit strange - but only for a minute. In the layer palette, click the top line (Group - Raster1) and add a new raster layer.

Drag the new layer below the layer group. Be careful not to add it to the group but to have it standing alone below the group (check the screenshot below).

Set the fill style to "colour" (may be "solid") and chose black as colour. Check that the new bottom layer is selected in the layer palette and fill it with the black colour.

As the final touch you may try to play with the visibility of the mask layer to give it an even more interesting touch. That's it: an old looking, quite old-fashioned-style picture. FastCounter by bCentral