*****Warning***** this is a difficult tutorial, please don't attempt it if you haven't completed the Beginner Lessons!!!

In this lesson we learn to work with vector shapes in creating a 3D Shamrock for St Pat's Day! If you are a beginner this is not the lesson for you, difficulty level is set pretty high so please be advised. There are five files in this zip, one is a shape (.psp) and the other four are gradients. Copy the four gradient files into your My Documents \ PSP Files \ Gradients folder now.

Open a new image, our default image, 300 x 300 transparent background 200 dpi. Immediately I want you to save this file as a working file, (.psp) with the name of Shamrock_(your initials).psp

mine looks like this Shamrock_cms.psp I will be reminding you but you need to keep in mind to save this image as often as you can because it can be totally frustrating to put a lot of work into a creation only to loose if the program crashes or closes for some other reason.

You have one other file attached it is your shape file called Shamrock.psp open this file in your workspace, you will notice it looks like a heart shape, we need to export this to our shapes folder. If you need help with that please ask.

Back to your new image, make your foreground color black and your background color null (transparent) in your materials palette.

Next click on your preset shapes tool and find our Shamrock (heart) shape in the drop down menu. Make sure that your anti-alias and vector options are both checked. Draw out the first Shamrock leaf in the middle of the top half of your canvas.

Click on the Object Selector Tool

Right Click on the vector shape and choose copy. Right click again on your Canvas and choose Paste as a New Vector Selection. Paste your new leaf on top of your first, if it isn't aligned perfectly don't worry we will be adjusting them later. Paste your leaf five more time so that we have a total of 7 different leaf shapes. Save your image now.

If you open your Vector Layer Group in your Layer Palette you will see we now have 7 different vector layers. Each layer has the same name (Shamrock) the name of the shape we used to draw the copy. Rename your layers as follows Layer 2 Group name Shamrock, and the rest as in this image.

Double click on the newly named Color object layer to bring up the the Vector Properties Box, Change your stroke color to Null (transparent) and your fill color to #4A984A.

If you have gotten to this point and are having trouble, please don't continue. This is a difficult and complicated lesson and if you haven't been using PSP for very long this is not the tutorial for you.

Next double click on the Shadow object layer to bring up the Vector Properties box and change your stroke color to Null and your fill color to Gradient find the cc_Shamrock_shadow gradient in the drop down menu and use these settings.

Click OK and then OK again. Now double click on the Highlight 1 object to open the Vector Properties box, Change your stroke color to Null and fill color to gradient.

Click on your gradient and change to cc_Shamrock_hilite and change the settings to Horizontal 30 and Vertical 30. Leaving the Invert box unchecked but do check the Link Center and focal points box, in vs. 9 and above. Click OK and Ok again. Your image should look similar to this. Please save now.

Double Click on the Highlight 2 Object to open the Vector Properties box and Change your Stroke box to Null and the fill box to gradient, again choose the cc_Shamrock_hilite gradient with the settings at Horizontal 70 and Vertical 30 everything else the same as before. Click OK and OK again.

Next double click on the Dark 1 Object to open the Vector Properties box and change the Stroke box to Null and the fill box to gradient changing the gradient to cc_Shamrock_dk_shadow with the Horizontal at 0 and the Vertical at 0 all other setting the same as previous. Click OK and OK again.

Double click on the Dark 2 Object to open the Vector Properties box and change the Stroke box to Null, the fill box to Gradient, change the gradient again to cc_Shamrock_dk_shadow with the Horizontal at 90 and the Vertical at 90 all other settings the same as previous. Click OK and OK again. Save your image.

Now Double click on the Light Object to open the Vector Properties Box and change the Stroke box to Null, the fill box to Gradient, change the gradient to cc_Shamrock_light with the following settings:

Click OK and OK again. Move your Light layer in the Layer Palette to just down below the Dark 1 layer. This will soften the detail a bit.

To align all our layers click on any of your objects in your layer palette. Hold down your shift key and click each of the remaining objects so that they are all selected. Right click on any of the highlighted objects and choose Group - now all your objects will move together. Leave selected. Click on Objects/Align/Horz. Center in Canvas:

This will bring all the layers in alignment even if they look like they are all aligned perfectly you still need to do this operation just to make sure.

We now have an image that looks like the our first Shamrock leaf, next steps will put all the of this together to make the actual Shamrock, are you ready??

Make sure that none of your objects are selected, go to Selections/ Select None. Duplicate your Shamrock Layer, you will now have two layers one Shamrock one Copy of Shamrock. Then Go to

Image / Rotate / Free Rotate making sure that All Layers is unchecked (newer version can click on the box Rotate Single Layer around Canvas Center) Rotate Left 90°. Using the move tool

move the leaf to align with the other leaf as below.

Then convert this layer to a Raster Layer. Again Duplicate your copy of Shamrock layer and this time mirror your image. And move to align with other leaves. Now rotate the left layer 10° left and the right layer 10° right. Then convert your first layer to a raster layer. You should only have three raster layers showing. We are almost done, please save now.

Click on your preset shape tool and find a triangle shape making sure that the anti-alias and vector boxes are checked. Draw out a triangle to resemble a stem. You can edit your vector nodes to make it look more realistic. Then convert to a raster layer.

Using your selection tool set to rectangle, surround the stem with the selection and then click on the stem to select it. Invert your selection (Selection / Invert) and apply a drop shadow:
Vertical and Horizontal both set to: 3; Opacity: 65; Blur: 15; Color: black. Move your stem to the bottom of the layers, moving the stem if necessary.