Easy Shadows in PSP 8, 9 and X
by kim@pixelbit.com

This tutorial is designed to introduce custom paint brush and airbrush in PSP 8, 9 and X

What you make is yours but please don't steal my work.

Open a tube that you would like to apply shadow to.
SHIFT + D to duplicate and close the original to preserve it.

Click File > Export > Custom Brush.

This window will pop up.  Give your new brush a name.
Click OK.

On your tools palette you can select either paint Brush or Air Brush.
Here are the differences
Paint Brush = Each tap of your mouse will place 1 stamp of your brush. You can increase the darkness by stamping more than once.
Using the paint brush is easy to control the opacity.
Air brush = Click your mouse to apply the brush. The longer you hold your mouse down, the darker your stamp will become.

Click on the paint brush selection button

All of the available brushes will be visible. Click on the one that you just made. Click OK.

On your image, make a new layer.
In your color palette, set your colors to the colors that you want your shadow to be.
HINT
 LEFT mouse button will be the FOREGROUND color.
RIGHT mouse button will be the BACKGROUND color.

Place the shadow on your image in the opacity that you desire.

In your layer palette, reverse your layers.

You can save in JPG or PSP format.

If you would like a background on your image, add a new layer, Flood the new layer with your desired background pattern.
Move this layer to the bottom and merge.
I hope you have enjoyed my tutorial.
Scroll down to see some more effects made using this method.

Here a re just a few of the effects that you can make with this method

This image was made by making 4 shadow layers and applying a different opacity stamp to each layer

This image was done the same way but changing the color to pink.

This image was made by keeping the opacity of all layers the same but choosing lighter shades of grey in the color palette.

This was one made by using 4 shadow layers. The first layer, the brush is a light color and slightly larger then the image.
Each layer, the size of the brush was increased and a darker color was selected in the palette.