Magazine Cover

This tutorial has been translated into Dutch
by Monique
http://members.lycos.nl/monnetjespspsite/magazine_cover.htm

For this tutorial you will need:

Jasc Paint Shop Pro 9
Image of your choice
Code3X font - HERE

This tutorial was written in PSP 9 but can easily be done in earlier versions.

Let's get started!

1. Open a transparent image 350 x 425 and fill with a gradient
that matches the image you are using. I picked 2 colors out of my
tube and used the Foreground/Background gradient

2. On a new layer place your tube or graphic. In order to make the image fade out toward the edge you will be selecting a portion of your image then feathering the selection, promoting it to a selection then going back down to the layer you first selected and deleting it. You will repeat this process 3 or 4 times. Here are the details:

a. Choose either 1/4 or 1/3 of your image (depending on the width)
to select using your selection tool set to rectangle.
b. Go to Selection/Modify/Feather and set it to about 45
c. right click on your image layer in the layers palette and choose
Promote Selection to Layer - keep selected!
d. Now click on the first image layer and hit the delete key
e. Go back up to the Promoted layer and set the opacity somewhere
around 40. Deselect.

Repeat this process 3 or 4 times, selecting a smaller slice of your image each time & lowering the opacity more and more
with each layer until you are happy with the way it looks. I also
lowered the opacity of my first image layer to 84. Your layers
will be similar to this:

as you can see, by the time I got to the fourth layer, my selection is barely visible.

3. For the magazine title I chose a simple chunky font, Abadi MT Condensed (which I believe is a basic Windows font). I used the same gradient as my background for the fill, but reversed the angle direction and used my lighter color as the stroke, width set to 1. I created it as a vector so I could stretch it out across the top of my graphic.
Drop shadow settings: H & V 1, Opacity 50, Blur 4

4. For your article titles use another basic font as magazines usually use bold easy to read print. I used white with the same drop shadow settings as before. For the article description I used a darker color with a slightly less bold font. I created my text as vectors so I could resize them and move them around, then converted them to a raster layer once I was satisfied.

Have fun with this part and make up some interesting or funny "articles"!

5. Using the Shapes tool set to circle, create as vector & using my lighter color, I drew out a circle and positioned it in the bottom left corner. I added the text as a vector and angled it, converted it to a raster layer then added the drop shadow.

6. To make the bar code, set your background to white & draw out a rectangle. Set your font to Code3X, background color black and type out some numbers and spaces.

7. Right click on your layers and Merge/Flatten

8. To finish your magazine add a border of 10 in a matching color and your done!

I hope you had fun making your very own magazine issue. I would love to see what you've done with yours and to post some other examples here so please feel free to email me.

Sandy's fantastic Magazine Cover

Here's Patricia's beautiful magazine

created by OHareDesigns©

Stacey's gorgeous cover

Bec aka Peek's awesome cover

Delilah's fabulous cover

This is Lorraine's results. Just gorgeous!
Thank you Lorraine

This is Dana's results. I'm just in awe at how pretty this is!
Thank you Dana!