Words Icy Bead Swag Tubes with swags of draped bead garlands

Beaded Swag Tube PSP8

Have you ever wondered how the gold chain tube that came with PSP8 was made? It was likely created on a grid, and is like a multiple rope tube. We'll create a simple beaded swag from based on the beads from my Icy Bead tut. You'll be using grids, guides, mover tool and lots of layers

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Sources

All supplies except bead tubes were included in the Icy Bead tut supplies. You are supplying those bead tubes :)

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  1. Open the layout guide and add a new raster layer.
  2. Under View, make sure guides and grids are both on. Right click on name area of image window, choose Grid properties. Current image grid should be 50, 0 and 25 snapto. 800x800 image with 1 row, 16 columns, so column width is 50. Math is based on my big round bead tube which equals 3 small beads at 100 tube size.
  3. You may wish to use precise cursors with the outlined feature on. File->Preferences->General Preferences-> Display & Caching tab.
  4. Now, working in columns, between the grid lines, place your various bead tubes. The large beads should be centered in the grid column. I stuffed 3 small beads in a column.
  5. If you like, do one layer with the vertical column of beads, a layer with the linked rings, and each horizontal string its own layer.
  6. Save often! clear your cache/command list and undo fields often as well since this is a huge image.
  7. When you have every column filled with at least one bead, save the image and make a Shift-D copy of your image.
  8. Delete the vector layer and merge visible the layers.
  9. File->Export->Picture Tube. Cells Across = Should be 240, BUT sometimes the cell width value goes off of 50. (If so, increase or decrease the value to get back to 50 width.) Cells Down= 1 Placement= CONTINUOUS Step= (try 20) for now, increase or decrease later as needed. Selection Mode= INCREMENTAL and name your file.
  10. Do experiment with bead placement and step sizes. The two are related closely.
  11. View, and turn off any guides and grids. Change back any general preference items you changed.
  12. Hints: You can make copies of the panel of beads you created, arrange in a file ([number panels x 800]+1) x 800 new image to create longer and more complicated swags. Just save copies of the panel with one fewer string of horizontal beads each time. Plenty of room for playing here. :) ex:

    Lminus3 Lminus2 Lminus1 L | Lminus1 Lminus2 Lminus3

    Where L is the full panel you made, and the | is the missing vertical for the right side if you were lazy and just mirrored the left minuses side.
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