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To print this tutorial, click the print button on your browser.

Open a new image 400 X 400 Transparent.

Press CTRL + B to bring up your browser window. You can also click FILE>BROWSE.

Choose the image that you would like to make into a mask. I'm partial to flowers so I will use flowers, but if you like cars.....go for it.

**HINT** You can use more than one tube.

Once you have chosen and opened the image that you want, Press SHIFT + D to duplicate it and close the original to preserve it.

Press CTRL + C to copy. Refer to your 400 X 400 Transparent image. Press CTRL + L to paste as a new layer.

Your image should take up most of your 400 X 400 images. As you can see from the screen shot above, mine doesn't. You will need to resize.

OK now we have the size right. Looking good so far? OK lets go.

Once you have your image the way you want it, merge visible layers.

Colors > Grey Scale

Your image should now look something like this. If it does, you're doing GREAT.

MASKS > NEW>FROM IMAGE

Here are the settings for the mask window. Please note that the invert mask data is checked.

MASKS > SAVE TO DISK

You will be asked to give your mask a name. The file widow will default to your masks folder in PSP, but you have the option of saving it somewhere else.

Once you have saved your mask. Brink up the image that you would like to apply the mask to. In my case, this is a picture of my daughter.

Press SHIFT + B again to bring up your browser window again.

Select the masks folder.

With your mouse grab the mask that you would like to apply to your image and drag and drop it into your image.

Notice the that center of the image is still there but the edges have become transparent.

If you forget to invert during saving or you are using a pre-made mask that was not inverted, it will look like this. This is NOT a problem. We can simply invert now.

MASKS > INVERT

OK if your mask looks correct, click on LAYERS > MERGE > MERGE FLATTEN.

VOILLA!

**HINT** Instead of flattening, I could have made a transparent gif. Click on my Transparent Gif tutorial to see how to do that.

http://www.pixelbit.com/tips_and_tricks/transparent_gif

I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial. If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to email me at:

kim@pixelbit.com