GETTING STARTED

You have just purchased Corel Paint Shop Pro and don’t know what to do first.
(If you haven’t made your purchase yet, click the link on the side)
I am here to help.
Let’s start small.

We will be going over a lot of features as we do many different things.

The program that I have and will be guiding you on is Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo XI.

If you have a different program, don’t worry as they are pretty similar.


Let’s go over the basics.

The first thing that I want you learn is the many functions that you can use.



This is in the top left hand corner.


You can use the drop down menus from File, Edit, View, Image, Adjust, Effects, Layers, Objects, Selections, Window, and Help.

Or you can use some of the icons.




This is the drop down menu from File. You can use this to create a new image or open an existing image. You also use this to save your images.

The drop down for Edit is pretty self explanatory as it is for editing your work.

The next menu to learn about will be the “View” menu. I would like to go over some things with you in this menu right now as it will help you later.




This is what is in the view drop down.
We will be focusing on the Toolbars and Palettes in this area.



First Toolbars…



What you want checked is standard, status, and tools.

Click these and I will show you what they are.

Standard




See the star part that is right under the menu?

That is the Standard Toolbar.

Let’s go through the basic features that we will be using.




These are the icons of the standard features that we will most often use.


1. New - This creates a new image.
2. Open – This opens and existing image from your files.
3. Toggle organizer – This toggles the organizer from your picture folder on and off.
4. Scan Image
5. File Save – This recommended often, especially for large projects.
6. File Save As – This is to save your file but gives you the ability to name it.
7. Print – This is to print your project.


These are all we will learn from the Standard Toolbar for now. The rest we learn as we go.

The next Toolbar is the Status Bar.

The status bar goes across the bottom of the grey work area.

I broke it up into two bars. It would be 1 long bar along the bottom of the screen.





This tells you what tool you are using and what colors of paint.
It also tells you that my cursor was at x axis 145 and y axis 133 and that my foreground color was R0 G0 B0 O0 which is Black. Also, it says that I am working on Image: 300 X 300 x RGB – 8 bits/channel

The next Tool bar is the Tools

Here are the Tools





There is a lot of information here. Also as you can see, some of the icons have arrows next to them showing you that there are more options there. We will be learning these as we go. I would suggest clicking on the icons and seeing what they do.

You will however, quickly learn these functions as you learn PSP.

I have my Tools toolbar docked on the left hand side of the work area.

Also, remember that these icons are grayed out when there is no new or existing image in the work area.





Now, let’s move to Palettes!


Go to View and down to palettes which will open the menu for all of the palettes.

Palettes are very important as you will see.





The palettes that are check marked are the ones that I use. You will, as you become familiar with the program, choose which toolbars and palettes best serve your needs.

Let’s go through the palettes that I use and why.

I dock my history, layers, and materials palettes on the right side of the work area. They fit very nicely there and I am able to stay organized and know where I am in the middle of any project.




As you can see above I put a star by the different palettes that I store here. The materials palette is where your colors are changed as well as how that color is applied as in gradients, patterns or textures.

The history palette lets me know every move I have made in any project and gives me the ability to undo 1 thing or many things that I have done.

The layers palette is where you can separate layers of your project, giving you more control over your work.

The organizer is at the bottom and gives you an easier time finding your own files from the computer. I store a lot of pictures that I use in graphics in my PSP files that are in my documents. Instead of going in search of them, I can easily locate what I need from the organizer.





As you can see in the organizer is the folder for Corel and next to it is pictures of animals. I can use these in my creations.

(always remember to give proper credits and be sure to check all artists Terms of Use before using any of their work)

Next is Tool Options.





See the area that is starred. That is the tool options. These change depending on what Toolbar option you click. I chose the Text tool option to show you that you can change the font, font size, what unit the size is indicated by, font style, alignment, direction, the look of the font, stroke width and which format to put it in.

We will be going through these when we start doing text art. For now let’s just notice that these options change with the tool option you choose. If I change and click the preset shapes options, then this will change to this.




Now instead of fonts and font size we have options of shapes and modes with number of sides and radius.


So, keep an eye on the Tool options when you change your tools. I have mine docked at the top right under the Standard Toolbar.

You will find that you can put these different palettes and toolbars in many different places to suit your needs.

So now, Go and have fun playing around with the palettes and toolbars. Always remember that if you think you have messed up completely and lost your toolbars and can’t find them, you can always reset everything to factory default.

Go to File, Preferences, Reset Preferences…





Click that and a box will open…








Then click OK.

This will set everything back to default and make all of the toolbars and palettes visible. I would then just click to close the ones that I did not need.

I hope this tutorial has been helpful to you with your new Pain Shop Pro program from Corel.




All graphics and tutorial is copyrighted ©TwistedDesignES-2010