This tutorial was written in PSP 9, but can be done in earlier versions. This tutorial also assumes you are familiar with PSP and where to find things!

Please don't claim my tutorials as your own or script them or sell them. If you'd like to share, please send as a link. Thank you!

For this tutorial you will need:

US Bats font: HERE
Images pertaining to your state. 

Making this graphic will require a little research on your part! To find out your state bird, flower, flag & nickname etc you can try here:
http://www.50states.com/
After you have the information you need, you will begin your hunt for images! I just typed in the name of the bird or flower for New Jersey if I didn't already have an image I needed. Actually it was fun for me to track down the images. But that's just me. 

Just think, it's a tutorial and a history lesson all rolled into one! LOL

Just because this tutorial was done for US States doesn't mean you can't do one showcasing your country! However, I realize that the US font won't be of any use to you. There may be a font for countries somewhere, but I have never come across it. If anyone can point me in the direction of a font or shapes file of countries I would be most appreciative.

Okay now that you've spent an hour preparing, let's get started. LOL

1. Open a transparent canvas. The size will depend on your state. My
state is long and narrow so I chose 350x500. Give yourself room to work, you can resize later.

2. Open your US- Bats font and minimize, it will then show up in your fonts. 
Set your background to white - create as vector, size 72, stroke 0. 
I just went through the alphabet one letter at a time, 
backspacing when it wasn't my state until I came to New Jersey. 
Which by the way is letter "d" if you need it!
Once you've found your state hit apply. Then pull out from 
the corners of the bounding box to fill your canvas, leaving some
  room around the edges. Right click on your layer and convert to raster.

3. Go to selections/select all/selections float. Open the image you chose for your background and copy. Minimize your image for use later in selecting colors. Activate your state and paste into selection. I chose the NJ state bird, the American Goldfinch.

4. Go to effects/texture effects/texture and choose one that you like.
These are my settings:


5. While it is still selected right click on the floating layer and choose promote selection to layer. This is so our white background is separate
from the image and now we can lower the opacity of the image and have the white showing through. Lower your opacity to around 55-65, depending on
your image. Keep selected!

6. Right click on your promoted layer and once again promote this to a layer. Giving you the original white layer & 2 promoted layers.

Go to Modify Selections/Expand and expand by 2. Fill this with a pretty metallic gradient that goes with your image. I used gold. Then drag this layer below your white layer. You should have something like this:


7. Merge layers visible. Resize this layer 75% - make sure resize all layers is NOT checked.

8. Activate your shapes tool and pick the star. Set your foreground to the gradient you previously used and,  using your eyedropper tool, set your background to a color picked out of the image which you minimized earlier. 
Set your shape to create on vector, line width 1 or 2 and choose how many points you want for your star (PSP 9). These are my settings:


Now pull out a star on your state to map your location. Right click on
the star layer and convert to raster. Add a drop shadow. 
I used V 1 H 2 Opacity 75 and Blur 3. 
Here's how mine looks so far:


9. At this point it's up to you how you would like to decorate your map.
I used images of things New Jersey is famous for and resized them, 
adding a border in my gradient to some,  placing them around the
map where they are located (on separate layers). 

New Jersey is best known for what we call the 
"Jersey Shore", horse farms, farmlands & the beautiful 
Victorian homes of Cape May that are referred
to as "Painted Ladies". The most famous being The Angel of the Sea. 
It is a true beauty and you can see how pretty it is here: http://www.angelofthesea.com/
Go into the site and see the gorgeous Victorian rooms in this famous
Bed & Breakfast. I know this has nothing to do with a tutorial, but 
if you love Victoriana, I promise you'll enjoy it! 

10. I finished off my decorating by adding my state flower, the violet,
behind my map. 

11. I wanted a shadow under the map where it intersects the violets, but
I also wanted my image to be on a transparent background. If you add
a drop shadow and save as a anything other than a tube, the semi-transparent pixels of the shadow would be converted to fully opaque pixels and would not look clean on any other color than white. 
So this is what I did:

a. activate the map layer & go to the drop shadow effect

b. add whatever settings you like, but be sure to check the little
box Shadow on new layer - you will see a new layer in the
layer palette with your shadow

c. hide your shadow layer, activate the layer underneath your state - in my case the flowers, and with your magic wand, click in the blank area outside the flowers

d. keep selected and unhide and activate your shadow layer then hit the delete key - you will have deleted any shadow that was on the
transparent area and keep only what is between the two
images. Now when you save it will be neat and clean!

12. Select none and merge all layers visible.

13. Create a new layer and make your text any way you like using a preset
or bevel and whatever other techniques you like!

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial.

Here's Stacey's awesome results:

Here's Gradie's wonderful tag:

© 3Angelz