Glossary of PSP Terms

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Beginners Terms to Understand

The world of PSP is fun and exciting, but can also be a little bit intimidating when you first start out. In an effort to make it seem a little less intimidating and a lot more familiar, we have come up with a list of commonly used terms when discussing and using PSP. When applicable, pictures will be added in an effort to make it even a little bit easier to understand.

The Basics

• PSP: Paint Shop Pro the computer graphics program by Corel (formerly by JASC)
• Filter (aka Plug in): Filters, or plug ins, are basically programs within your PSP program. They take the image you have and twist it, recolor it, reshape it, do pretty much anything you can imagine and more to that image. PSP has some default plug ins, found under the “Effects” tab. They can be used to achieve many drastically different effects from one basic image. When adding filters to your PSP program, save them into your Plug Ins folder, and restart PSP so that you can use them.
• jpg (jpeg) or gif: These two terms simply refer to the format you have saved your finished sig in. GIF (graphic interchange format) files are the type of file that Animation shop makes. GIF files can have transparent or colored backgrounds, whichever you choose. JPG files, while a little smaller in size, do not allow for animation, and always have a background. If you save an image with a transparent background as a .jpg file, the background will save as white.
• Layer and Layer Palette: Layers are a basic unit of PSP. Think of layers as sheets of glass. If the top layer is light enough, you will be able to see through to what lies in the layers below it. Using the Layer Palette, you can change the order of the layers and the layer opacity. (If your layer palette is not visible, not to worry, simply hit L in PSP 7, or F8 in PSP 8.
• Layer Opacity: Basically this is how you select how much you want your layer to show. If the opacity is at 100%, the image will show through with the colors at their full strength. At 0%, the layer is invisible.
• Mask: When you look at a mask, you see a pretty screwed up shape that you’d probably never want to use by itself in a signature. A lot of people ignore masks for that very reason. Knowing how to interpret mask samples goes a long way in figuring out their usefulness. When you apply a mask over a layer in your image, the dark portions of the mask make that part of the layer transparent, so the layer underneath shows through. The image below is a good example of a mask. I took a layer and flood filled it with black, then used a mask on it. I added a bottom layer of white, simply to show the contrast. When looking at the mask, the design you see in black here was shown in white.
• Pixel: A pixel is the basic unit of any graphic, no matter what format it is saved in. If you zoom in on an image, way in, you will see that it is made up of a series of what look like squares. These are the pixels.
• Tube: A tube is simply a graphic or image on a transparent background, saved in PSP format. They are much easier to use than other types of images because there is no background image to try to work around.
• Tut: Simply the shortened version of the word tutorial. A ‘how to’ written on the way to achieve a certain effect or look to a sig. They often are written to show the reader how to use a certain filter, or combination of filters. Tuts are generally written assuming you have a good working knowledge of PSP.

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