Creating a ColorBar Using PaintShop Pro

You may have seen people using “color bars” in their user info pages around the internet, and you may have asked yourself, “how can I make one of those?” Well, it’s really easy using Jasc’s, Paintshop Pro.

1. First, you want to pick out the picture(s) that you want to use.

2. Using the crop tool at the left of your screen (View > Toolbars > Tools if you don’t have the tool bar on your left), crop your picture into a perfect square. Hint: the width and height dimensions are shown in the tool options pallet at the top (View > Pallets > Tool Options)

3. Image > Resize Make sure your drop down menu at the right says pixels, and change the width and height to 100 x 100

4. Edit > Copy that image, and then hit Ctrl V five times (or crop and resize each of your pictures so that they’re 100 x 100). You should be left with six 100 x 100 square pictures.

5. Select one of the pictures. Adjust > Hue and Saturation > Colorize. Change the Hue to 0 and the Saturation to 200, and then click OK. The color should be red.

6. Select a second picture. Adjust > Hue and Saturation > Colorize. Change the Hue to 20 and the Saturation to 200, and then click OK. The color should be orange.

7. Select a third picture. Adjust > Hue and Saturation > Colorize. Change the Hue to 40 and the Saturation to 200, and then click OK. The color should be yellow.

8. Select a fourth picture. Adjust > Hue and Saturation > Colorize. Change the Hue to 60 and the Saturation to 200, and then click OK. The color should be green.

9. Select a fifth picture. Adjust > Hue and Saturation > Colorize. Change the Hue to 150 and the Saturation to 200, and then click OK. The color should be blue.

10. Select the sixth, and final picture. Adjust > Hue and Saturation > Colorize. Change the Hue to 190 and the Saturation to 200, and then click OK. The color should be purple, and you should have all of your pictures colorized.

11. File > New Width: 600, Height: 100

12. Copy the red square (ctrl C), and paste (Ctrl L) it as a new layer onto the new, blank image.

13. Use the Move Tool on the left of your screen to move it all the way over to the left of the box.

14. Do the same with each of the pictures, until you have them all in the new image, lined up in order of Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, and Purple.

15. Layers > Merge > Merge All (Flatten)

16. Image > Add Borders Make sure the “symmetric” box is checked and the dropdown menu on the left says pixels. Change the color to whatever color you would like your border to be and then put the number “2” into one of the boxes. They should all say “2” now.

16. File > Save As Save your image as a .gif or a .jpg

If you want to add words to your color bar, simply create a new, blank image, 610 x 125 pixels. Copy your saved color bar to your new image and place it where you want it. Then add the text as you desire, merge it, and save it.