You may have seen type of 'montage' where several pictures, either of one person or several family members, are put together as an image, using ltters of their name as 'masks' to shape the images.
This task uses five or six images, to show the technique. It is not particularly simple in Paintshop Pro, but with a little application can be done.
Follow the steps below:
The trick is to set up the word you want to use as your base 'canvas' - into which you will place the images of people.
This image was set at 20 cm wide by 5 cm deep and 200 dpi resolution.
Into it the word to be used was typed: 'FAMILY' using a heavy typeface: Futura Extra Bold.
The type was enlarged to fit literally by dragging the handles using the vector selection arrow. It was also 'kerned' in the Tool Options palette to separate the letters out.
The next steps appear complex but are really quite straightforward:
1) Right click on the vector type layer in the Layers palette and duplicate.
2) Then right click on the copy of the type layer and choose 'Convert to Raster Layer'
3) 'Turn off' the vector type layer
4) In the now rasterised copy layer, use the lasso tool (Point to Point mode) to select the F and 'Cut' it
5) Turn off the copy of the type layer, click on the background layer and then choose menu command 'EDIT > PASTE AS NEW LAYER'
6) Using the move tool (four arrows) place the F back in its proper position.
7) Turn the copy type layer back on and repeat with the remainder of the letters to achieve a 'stack' - see below:
You should now have a series of letters on separate layers to spell out FAMILY.
Again there is a sequence of similar actions to follow:
1) Open the image 'family_1.jpg' and copy it
2) Return to the montage and click on Raster 1 layer (the letter F) with the Magic Wand tool to select the letter shape, use the menu command: 'SELECTIONS > INVERT' to get the F shape, then turn OFF Raster layers 1 to 6.
3) Right click on the Background layer, choose 'NEW RASTER LAYER'
4) Choose the menu command: 'EDIT > PASTE INTO SELECTION' to place family_1 into the letter shape (as left).
5) Repeat actions 1) to 4) with the images family_2, family_3, family_4, family_5, and family_6, pasting each one into the selected letter shape to build up the image below left:
Important notes about achieving the final image (below):
To select the A in the wording, you will first have to select the outside of the letter, 'Invert' the selection, then use the mode 'Remove' (from the selection) when you select the inside of the A.
All the sample pictures were resized to the same resolution of the final montage: 200dpi, before placing in the montage.
Any image 'pasted into' a selection will be sized by Paintshop Pro to fit the selection - so be sure your copied image (or part thereof) is a similar proportion to avoid distortion.
