Insomnia Tutorial

This tutorial was written by Amber Howard on August 1, 2015. Any resemblances to other tutorials are completely coincidental. Scripting and translating of this tutorial is forbidden. Do not copy and paste this tutorial anywhere else on the internet. Please link back to the main blog instead.

In this tutorial I used the artwork of Sheena Pike.

You can purchase this artwork and a license through CDO. 

Please do not use this or any artwork without purchasing a proper license first.

Supplies needed:
PaintShopPro — I used X7 but any version will work
Tube of choice.
Font of choice — I used Notepaper Airplane.

Plugins needed:
AAA Frames — Foto Frame*
AFS Imports — Evanesce*
AFS Imports — Needles*
AFS Imports — Poleperv*
AFS Imports — Turbinem*
Eye Candy 4 — Gradient Glow
Eye Candy 6 — Perspective Shadow
Lokas Artistic Effects — Ice
Mura’s Meister — Copies

*- You might need to import these filters into Filters Unlimited 2.0!

Ready? Set? Go!

Open a 600x250 canvas.

Copy and paste your tube as a new layer,

and resize as needed.

Apply Mura’s Meister – Copies – Wallpaper (Rotate) with the default settings.

Adjust – Blur – Motion Blur with the following settings:

Angle: 150, Strength: 100%.

Repeat this twice, for a total of three blurs.

Rename this layer Background.

Selections – Select All – Clip to Canvas.

Image – Crop to Selection.

Add a new raster layer above the Background layer.

Choose a light color from your tube as the foreground in your color palette,

and a dark color as the background.

Create a Foreground/Background gradient with the following settings:

Style: Linear, Angle: 0, Repeats: 8.

Flood fill the raster layer with your gradient.

Duplicate the gradient layer.

Rename the original Evanesce.

Rename the duplicate Needles.

Make the Evanesce layer active

and apply AFS Imports – Evanesce at the default settings.

Change the settings of this layer to Dodge.

Make the Needles layer active

and apply AFS Imports – Needles at the default settings.

Change the settings of this layer to Soft Light.

Add a new raster layer above the Needles layer.

Open the gradient on your color palette so that you can invert the colors,

and then change the number of Repeats to 4.

Fill the new raster layer with the new gradient.

Apply AFS Imports – Poleperv at default settings,

and change the settings of the layer to Color or Color (L).

Rename this layer Poleperv.

Duplicate the Background layer.

Layers – Arrange – Bring to Top.

Apply AFS Imports – Turbinem at default settings,

and change the settings of this layer to Soft Light.

Merge all visible layers together.

Rename this layer Bottom.

Duplicate the Bottom layer,

and rename this layer Top.

Image – Mirror.

Image – Flip.

Change the settings of this layer to Screen.

Apply AAA Frames – Foto Frame with a width of 10,

and default settings otherwise to both the Bottom and Top layers.

Merge Visible.

On your keyboard press Shift + D to duplicate the image,

so that it will be available for the matching avatar.

On the original, copy and paste your tube once again.

Resize as needed, and arrange to the left or right of the canvas.

Duplicate the tube layer.

Rename the original layer Tube,

and the duplicate Tube Blur.

On the Tube layer, apply a drop shadow of choice,

or the one I used with the following settings:

V: 10, H: 5, Opacity: 75%, Blur: 14.75

On the Tube Blur layer,

Adjust – Blur – Gaussian Blur at 10.00.

Change the settings of this layer to Hard Light.

Add a new raster layer at the top of your layers palette.

Selections – Select all.

In your color palette, change the gradient back to the color,

so that your foreground is the light color from the gradient,

and the background is the dark color.

Flood fill the new raster layer with the dark color.

Selections – Modify – Contract by 1 pixel.

Hit delete on your keyboard once.

DO NOT DESELECT.

Flood fill the raster layer again with the light color.

Selections – Modify – Contract by 2 pixels.

Hit delete on your keyboard once.

DO NOT DESELECT.

Flood fill the raster layer with the dark color again.

Selections – Modify – Contract by 1 pixel.

Hit delete on your keyboard once.

Selections – Select None.

Rename this layer Frame.

Zoom in on your canvas so you can clearly see the middle of the frame.

Grab the magic wand tool with these settings:

Mode: Add, Match: Color, Tolerance: 20, Feather: 0.

Click inside of the lighter color of the frame.

Adjust – Add/Remove Noise – Add Noise at 50%,

Random and Monochrome checked.  

Selections – Select None.

Zoom back out to 100%.

Duplicate the Frame layer.

On the original:

Adjust – Brightness/Contrast – Brightness/Contrast with these settings:

Brightness: -255, Contrast: 0.

Adjust – Blur – Gaussian Blur at 7.00.

Choose a pixel font of choice,

add your credits, license, and tagger’s mark.

Choose a font of choice or use Notepaper Airplane.

Foreground null and background your dark color.

Add your name.

When happy with the placement and size, convert to raster layer.

Duplicate the name layer.

On the duplicate name layer,

Apply Lokas Artistic Effects  – Ice at default settings,

making sure to turn off the color overlay.

Lower the opacity of this layer to 50%.

On the original name layer,

apply a medium 3.00 thick gradient glow in your lighter color.

Apply the same drop shadow used on the tube.

Save as a .JPG, and you’re done with the tag portion!

To create the avatar, open a new 150x150 canvas.

Make the duplicate of the background layer made earlier active.

Copy and paste it as a new layer on the smaller canvas.

Arrange the background at a point that you would like to showcase.

Drag the empty raster layer to the top of your layers palette.

Selections – Select all.

Flood fill the new raster layer with the dark color.

Selections – Modify – Contract by 1 pixel.

Hit delete on your keyboard once.

DO NOT DESELECT.

Flood fill the raster layer again with the light color.

Selections – Modify – Contract by 2 pixels.

Hit delete on your keyboard once.

DO NOT DESELECT.

Flood fill the raster layer with the dark color again.

Selections – Modify – Contract by 1 pixel.

Hit delete on your keyboard once.

Selections – Select None.

Zoom in on your canvas so you can clearly see the middle of the frame.

Grab the magic wand tool with these settings:

Mode: Add, Match: Color, Tolerance: 20, Feather: 0.

Click inside of the lighter color of the frame.

Adjust – Add/Remove Noise – Add Noise at 50%,

Random and Monochrome checked.  

Selections – Select None.

Zoom back out to 100%.

Duplicate the frame layer.

On the original:

Adjust – Brightness/Contrast – Brightness/Contrast with these settings:

Brightness: -255, Contrast: 0.

Adjust – Blur – Gaussian Blur at 7.00.

Copy and paste your tube once again.

Resize as needed,

and arrange to the opposite side of the canvas than in the tag.

Duplicate the tube layer.

On the tube layer, apply a drop shadow of choice,

or the one I used with the following settings:

V: 10, H: 5, Opacity: 75%, Blur: 14.75

On the duplicate layer,  

Adjust – Blur – Gaussian Blur at 10.00.

Change the settings of this layer to Hard Light.

Choose a pixel font of choice,

add your credits, license, and tagger’s mark.

Choose a font of choice or use Notepaper Airplane.

Foreground null and background your dark color.

Add your name.

When happy with the placement and size, convert to raster layer.

Duplicate the name layer.

On the duplicate name layer,

Apply Lokas Artistic Effects  – Ice at default settings,

making sure to turn off the color overlay.

Lower the opacity of this layer to 50%.

On the original name layer,

apply a medium 3.00 thick gradient glow in your lighter color.

Apply the same drop shadow used on the tube.

Save as a .JPG, and you’re done!

Thank you so much for trying my tutorial,

I’d love to see your results!

Below we have another example of this tutorial using the artwork of Jasmine Becket-Griffith
also available for purchase at CDO. This set uses the font DJB Messy Amanda Goes Bold.