I wrote this tutorial years ago and while it’s probably not exactly how Paint Shop Pro is currently, the principles and methods on how to make a good blend are the same (the same applies to Photoshop). Also, the page url has been updated. There will be a redirect but update your bookmarks just in case.

You cannot reproduce this tutorial without my permission.

This tutorial is to show you how to make a blend. I use Paint Shop Pro 8 but I’m sure the jest of it is the same for Photoshop. You need to know a little bit about psp to do this tutorial.
I’ve included pictures to show you but a lot of making a blend work is trial and error. The settings on this example will probably not work on other images. I got these photos from Getty Images all under the search “Japan”. I’m not going to redistribute them because it’s against their terms of service. I did put thumbnails though so you know which ones they are.

1. Open a new image 780 in width and 500 in height, set the background color to #D4DCD7 or flood fill with that color.

2. Take the picture with the bamboos and go to Effect > Image Effects > Seamless tiling. Set it these settings:

3. Create a new raster layer.

4. Flood fill your new layer with the bamboo. Set the transparency of that layer to 72.

5. Next, take the other 3 photos and use the rectangle selection tool and feather with 40:

You want to select a smaller area that you really want because it will feather the selection. Here is an example of how much you want to select:

And it would look like this:

Usually you don’t want it to touch the border like that but in this case, it doesn’t really matter. You can also select areas with the freehand selection. It’s up to you to decide which tool would work best.

6. Go to your main image and then click Control + L . That will create a new layer. Do that with all your image and you’ll wind up with something like this:

7. Now sometimes you have to retouch the layers because they don’t fit just right. Notice in this picture below, the 2 parts in the red circles, they are too dark.

8. Select your freehand selection tool. (Click on the arrow next to the rectangle selection tool we used earlier. It looks like a lasso. Leave the feather at 40. Make sure you are on the layer that has the water fountain and select an area like this and then hit the delete key. You can hit it a few times to delete a little more each time. I pressed the delete key about 3 times. Do the same for the second area we highlighted above.

9. You’ll end up with something looking like this (half original size):

11. Using this tutorial, you can create a translucent box for your content.

12. This is the end, you can use numbers or symbols or shapes for your navigation (using an image map).

13. You can also add texture using the techniques we used in this tutorial. I take other pictures, use parts of them and then blend them in, colorize sometimes and then lower their transparencies. I find that pictures of bubbles and grass can do wonderful textural effects. My first layout on this domain was made that way.

14. At this point of the tutorial, I would have made some changes to this blend and taken out the bamboo. Left just a solid background and added one more image to get this:

Another example of a blend is this:

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and that it was easy to follow. Comments and suggestions are welcomed.