Argyle Tiles in Paint Shop Pro

Using a any colors you like you can make an argyle tile that looks stitched very quickly. These seamless tiles can be used for backgrounds for Tags, frames, scrapbook pages, web pages, stationery... The uses are endless.

What you will need:

Paint Shop Pro X or higher
The Simple Filters

Click here to go to download the Simple Filters

The Texturizer Plugin

This tutorial assumes that you know how to install plugins. The Texturizer plugin is not offered for download because it is not necessary for this tutorial, only an added bonus if you have it.
Please take a moment to read my terms of use by clicking on the Link for it in the list above.
The tutorials listed above are written for PhotoImpact, but might be fun to try to convert to PSP. If you do try one, I would very much enjoy seeing your results.
All screen shots were made in PSP X2.

Let's Begin
Open a new canvas 200x200 pixels transparent.
Go to View/Change Grid, Guide & Snap Properties. Change Current Image Settings as follows. Horizontal & Vertical 100 pixels Snap influence at 5 pixels
Now go to View and click on Grid to turn it on. Your image should now be divided into four squares.
choose two complimentary colors. I am using two shades of blue. But you could also use a color and white.
Flood fill the image with your foreground color then turn off the foreground color.
Activate your Rectangle tool and choose the square. Now drag out a square shape starting in the center (put your cursor over the center of the grid). As you get close to a corner you will see that it will snap to fit the edge.
In your Layer palette right click on your Vector layer and Duplicate.
Activate your Mover tool and drag one of the squares to the opposite corner diagonally. Your image will look something like this. Insert image here.
Right click again and merge all (Flatten)
Choose a new foreground color. Something that contrasts with the ones already used. This is going to be used to create the stitches.
Activate the Pen tool and set up as follows Draw Lines and Poly lines Dashed Line (No Arrows) Width 3
Draw a line from top to bottom, down the center along the grid line. Click Apply. Right click and convert to Raster Layer. Now duplicate.
With the duplicated layer active go to Image/Free Rotate and set it to Right 90 degrees. Uncheck all Layers if it's checked and then click OK.
Now duplicate each of these two layers.
Go to View/Change Grid, Guide & Snap Properties. Change Current Image Settings as follows. Horizontal & Vertical 25 pixels Snap influence at 5 pixels and you should have two horizontally dashed line layers and two vertically dashed line layers in your Layer palette.
Activate your mover tool and move the horizontal lines to the grid and the two vertical lines also. Your image will now look like this....
Right click and merge all (Flatten)
This next is optional... Go to Effects/Texture/Texturizer and choose Canvas. Lower the relief to 1 and change the light direction to Top Right.
This step is not optional... Go to Effects/Simple/Diamonds. This will turn the square image into a completely tilable Argyle...
Variation...
Follow steps 1-12 above, then continue here.
Using your Mover tool move the top Vertical line all the way to the right edge. make sure it snaps to the grid.
Move the top Horizontal line all the way to the top edge, again making sure it snaps to the grid. Be careful not to let the lines disappear on those edges. Use the Undo to get them back if they do. Your image should look like this...
Right click and merge all (Flatten) You can stop here and have a checkerboard quilt, or apply the canvas texture and then Simple diamonds and get this... If you want your stitches to stand out more you can use FM Tile Tools Blend emboss if you have it. Enjoy your new backgrounds. They could easily be made to work with any image and would be super for scrapbook papers.
That's It. Enjoy your new stitched tiles!

What you will need:

Let's Begin

Variation...

That's It. Enjoy your new stitched tiles!