Make your own Paper Textures

When using the painting and retouching tools there is an option to select a paper texture for the actions taken on the image. These textures are greyscales bitmap images saved as .TEX files. This tutorial will show you how to make a paper texture of an image, and then install it in the Papers directory in PSP.

We will use the image below as an example.

Download it by clicking on the image with the right mouse button, then choose "Save Image As...".

Step 1:
This image is a JPG file. Let`s save it as a BMP. This is done by choosing "File - Save As..." (or hit the F12 key). Name the file "stone" and select BMP as the file format.

Step 2:
Now make it a greyscale image by choosing "Colors - Grey Scale".

Step 3:
Once again choose "File - Save As...", but this time name the file "stone.TEX" and save it in the "..\Paint Shop Pro\Papers" directory.

Step 4:
Use Windows Notepad (or Explorer) to open the file "PaperNam.IDX" located in the same directory (..\Paint Shop Pro\Papers). First name the texture, and on the next line edit the file name. I choosed to place it first in the list. Then just save the file.

The next time a painting tool is selected in PSP, the texture is added in the list.

Let´s test it with the Airbrush (Black foreground and White background color, Size = 20, Shape = Round, Opacity = 20). This is how it looks:

If you´re not satisfied with the result, open the "stone.TEX" file in PSP and adjust brightness, sharpen or soften it, or whatever may be neccesary to get the wanted effect.