For this tutorial you will need Paint Shop Pro ( I am using PSP 8) and an image.

The image below is what I will be tubing. If you want to use the same image that I’m using, just click on it and it will open full sized ... Just right click and save it to your hard drive or drag and drop it into your PSP workspace

1. Once you have your image open in PSP, duplicate it and close the original.

2. Right click in your layer pallette and promote background layer.

3. Create two new raster layers and flood fill each one with a different colour. (I always use a lightish but contrasting colour in the second layer and black in the third layer). I used #DBD0CA for this image

4. Drag your image layer to the top and  the black layer to the bottom.

5. Select your freehand selection tool with the following settings

6. Click your way around the image and when you get to where you started either double click or right click to close the selection and then invert. It should look like the image below

7. Hit delete on your keyboard once and you should have what you see in the image below.

8. Select none.

9. Now it’s time to start tubing the image in small sections, using the same Freehand Selection Tool with the same settings.

10. Zoom in on your image as far as you need to see very clearly. I’ve zoomed in to 600% and will select a small area to delete and hit delete once

11. As you can see in the second image that I missed a little of the white and needed to go over the area again.

HINT!

I never use the eraser tool as I find this gives very jagged edges

12. Now I close out the light flood filled layer so I can see on a black background if there are any stray pixels that need to be deleted.

13. Again in small areas delete the bits that don’t look right.

14. Once you’ve finished going round the whole image and it’s all tubed, select your magic Wand with a tolerance and feather of 0, click on the blank area outside the tube so the image is surrounded.

Zoom in and look to see if there is anything also selected on the blank area that needs to be erased. See image below.

15. If you do see any bit, select your eraser and select none. Erase the offending bit and go back to your magic wand and click outside the tube and keep looking for more stray pixels.

Repeat this procedure until you’re satisfied.

16. Delete the two flood filled layers and export your new tube

Click on the image below if you would like to download my tube.

A lot of the tubing is trial and error and practice. It’s also a matter of deciding what bits look right and wrong. I can’t really explain what becomes second nature, although trust me that does take a while.

Don’t get disheartened if your first tubes are not very “clean”, just keep practicing. My first tubes, when I look back on them now were pretty bad, but at the time I was very proud of my achievements and I thought they looked good too.

Everyone I shared them with was encouraging and that kept me going. One person in particular (Cheryl), kept emailing me that the tubes were getting better and that in no time I would be an expert. I told her she was nuts, that I’d never be as good as tubers that are well known.

Well look at me now, I’m writing a tutorial on my techniques, so I guess I really did get better and better, although I still have a long way to go and a lot of learning still to do.

Without your encouragement and support I would never have continued, so I want to thank everyone that gave me a kind word and advice and suggestions.