Basic SnowScape How to's I'm supporting the March of Dimes by walking on April 28th, 2007 To sponsor me, please click here.        VanDerLee has introduced a new freeware PSP compatible plug in called SnowScape that allows you to add snow on top of portions of your images. You can down load it here. I've been playing with it some since 12-18-00. Deceptively simple according to the website, but it's a little tricky unless you are used to working with selections and layers.       How this filter works: This filter is designed to add banks of snow on top of objects. It must be able to find both transparent areas (this is where your snow will "fall" and it must find colored pixels to land on. It also recognizes an area that snow might not fall on due to something blocking where it would fall. You don't have a lot of control on where it picks the snow to fall, but there are ways to get around that.  Paint Shop Pro 7, Download 30 trial version here.
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	Let's start with a basic object to get a feel for how this plug in works. You can download the object that I am going to use here. It's a zip file and is PSP6 compatible.
	Step One: Since this image already has transparency, don't use your magic wand to select the image once you have it opened in PSP. Select the SnowScape effect from your plugins menu. It will be listed under VDL Adrenaline. You should see the control panel and it should look something like this:
	Step Two: What do the controls do?  Thickness: Controls the Height of your falling snow.  Stickiness: Best I can tell, it also controls the height, but does some fine tuning.  Roughness: Adds texture to your snow.  Distribution: Helps you control somewhat where you want your snow to fall.  Top Only: The image that I have provided you has a transparent inner section. The "top only" will place snow as it states...on the top.  Even: Should distribute snow evenly in all areas that the filter picks finds pixels to place snow on.  More at the top/More at the Bottom: Think of this like scales. Maybe the "EVEN" setting put too much on either the top or the bottom than you wanted. Depending on what you were wanting to achieve, use one of these distribution methods.  TIP: Don't forget to readjust your Thickness and Stickiness sliders if you still aren't quite happy with the distribution placements.

		Click on the next button to venture on to some advanced techniques for using this filter.
		Updated 02/06/02
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