Presents:

JimmyK's Nascar Racing 2003 Season Painting Tutorial for PSP8

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     There are as many different ways to make numbers as there are painters. If the car I'm painting is a request I usually make numbers as a separate image and then copy and paste them into the car.  If the request has a specific style of number in mind and it matches a Winston cup car's numbers, I'll download if possible.  I'll try to cover a few ways to make or get numbers.

    The easiest way to get numbers is to download them. I have a couple of sites that I use if I want to get a number that Winston cup car really uses. The links are on the links page at the end of the tutorial. The main advantage to down loaded numbers is that they already come with outlines built in, and all you have to do is resize them to fit your car. The bad thing is that some, not all, sites don't post their numbers in layers so it is hard to change the colors. Not a big thing when you consider that no-one has to share in the first place. Here's a big thank you to those that do! THANK YOU!

    Probably the most frequent post I've seen at the different painting forums I go to is "how do I make the multicolored numbers?" Here's what I do. Start by making a new image. I make one that's 500X500 pixels. Then add 2 more layers. The number of layers depends on how many outlines you want on your number. Now add in the text using as big a font size as you can. I usually make them around 250. I know the sizes in the PSP text tool boxes only go up to 72, type over it and you can make any size you want. PSP8 has a lot of options for text, try them out and see how they look.

 The only way I've found to make numbers that look good in PSP 8 is to make them as vectors, and then resize them using the vector nodes. This lets you skew the numbers as well. I've tried using other methods but the numbers always end up very grainy. The easiest way I've found is to make the basic number right on the car as a vector, resize the number to just under the size you need on the car then convert it to a raster layer. Resizing is done by clicking on one of the nodes (corners) and dragging it to where you want. There's also one in the middle to move the number around without distorting it.

 Once you are happy with size and placement convert to a raster layer by selecting the vector layer in the layers palette, clicking on the icon and selecting convert to raster. Then cut the image out and paste it as a new selection into a new 500x500 image with a total of 3 raster layers. Paste the number into the top layer as a new selection and expand the selection by 2 or 3 pixels. It depends on how thick you want the outline to be. Then select the second layer and flood fill with the color of your choice. Expand the selection again, flood fill the 3rd layer to get another outline. You can do this for as many outlines as you want. I use 2 or 3, after that it looks a bit odd.

Now all you do is right click on any one of the layer's icons and "merge all visible". Your number is done! Now back to the car.