There is some fun to be had with the warping tools in Paint
Shop Pro. First comes the Mesh Warp tool
in the second group of
tools. First adjust the number of horizontal and vertical lines in the
mesh - 6 x 6 might be a good place to start. Then pull the crossover
handles around with the left mouse button. If you hold down the Ctrl key
you the distortion will affect several handles at the same time in
EITHER the horizontal OR the vertical direction, but not both. If you
hold down the shift key then you can move a whole line of handles at the
same time.Don't spend too long with that tool though because I think
your will prefer using the Warp Brush tool
which is in the same group
as the paint brush tool. Note that the warp brush tool allows you to
push, expand, contract, twirl or to apply a random effect. You can
also 'iron out' (gradually undo) effects you have already applied, or
undo them with a single brush stroke with the unwarp option. Be sure to
adjust the width of the brush to get the best effects - if you use a
large photo (as I always recommend) then you may find a brush width of
100 - 200 pixels gives rapid, satisfying results. You may not be able to
adjust the width of the warp brush tool using the same Alt-drag trick
that works with other brushes - simply use the width adjustment in the
tool options bar instead. The warp brush tool was the only tool I used
to convert this photo:
into this...
You can use the handsome (less ugly) version of this photo for your
own warping experiments, or you can find a high resolution photo of some
celebrity on the internet, or you can use a photo of yourself. However,
I ask
you not to use photos of your classmates without their permission in
case you offend them.
