Tutorial: Cutting Curves* in Paint Shop Pro 8.1
by Valeri Brumfield

*NOTE: this is not a beginner tutorial and assumes basic knowledge of the tools available in Paing Shop Pro 8.1

Cutting curves in your papers is pretty easy in Paint Shop Pro, and there are many different ways to get different results too. I will show youmy favorite. I am sure with a bit of creativity and playing around, you could also get some different results as well.!

My favorite way is using vector lines. I like the smooth curves and the control you get over the amount of the curve.

Using the Pen Tool, draw a straight line using the point to point segment type. I used the following settings... but feel free to play around to get different results. Thats half the fun!

After you draw your line, place the cursor on the line at some point and push the Ctrl button you will see +Add. Clicking will add another node to the line. Now Click on edit mode. (the white solid arrow), after you have added the new mode, right click and choose "asymmetric or symmetric". its really your choice. Each will give different results!

You can twist your arrow now to get some great shapes!Also, make sure your background is set to "null" so you just have a line, instead of the fill as well.

Keep playing with the arrrow until you get just the right curve. Make sure that you pull the end nodes off the screen so that you can select the part of the paper to delete.

Make sure that you have the vector layer selected like shown below.

Using the magic wand, select the part of the paper you want to delete.
Change your layer to the paper layer and hit your delete key and you have a curved cut out!

Now you can add a drop shadow to add dimension. You can also use the vector path for text or
stiches.. etc., but that is a whole new tutorial! For now you can delete the vector layer or just hide it.

Enjoy!!