I'm brand new to PSP!!

My program of choice is DIP 10 (it's no longer available). But it's the one I'm most familiar with. However a while back I did buy PSP so I could begin getting used to it and it would be an alternate program to DIP. So far - I'm lost LOL. I don't even know what question to ask at the moment about it. I do have a book that came with it that I can refer to..... Nice to know there's a place here I can come with questions though.

Ruth

What version of psp did you get? I have had 9 and X so I MIGHT be able to answer some questions on those! LOL It can be very confusing but I really enjoy working with it.

It's PSP Ultimate Photo X2. Basically these days what has me fiddling more with it (or trying to) is I finally bought a Lil Baby License Kit - from foilman.com and it's six disk set with various versions of files to use. The main one being psd files which I had never even heard of before. I'm most familiar with using png files with my DIP 10. I was hoping some of the files would work with DIP and a couple of people over at wrapcandy.com (who also have the lil license kit) have offered a couple of suggestions, neither of which has worked for me - to get it to work in DIP. This set does work in Publisher which I have and could use. Set also includes jpgs. I basically would like to be able to do with these as I'm used to doing with png files (which I think can be done in PSP with psd files) and just delete/add info.

So I guess my first question re PSP would be: I have these files - one for each state - for a baby license on a disk. First I insert the disk into my drive. Then open up PSP. Then what?

Ruth

I'm pretty sure you would be able to open these files in psp. There's several ways to do it....try right clicking on the image and when it gives a dropdown box see if it says" open with..." and choose to open it with psp.
Also, you could open your psp..minimize it...open the disk where you can see the image...then pull up psp again and just drag it over to the psp. Hope that makes sense. Once you have it in psp be sure and "duplicate" it so that you're working with a copy and not the original.
In mine, to make a copy I use shift & D at the same time.

OK - give me a couple of minutes and I'll try that and let you know.

Ruth

That part worked really well....I right clicked on the file I wanted and chose PSP on the drop down and it opened up like magic ;-). Then I did what you said and made the duplicate (shift + D) and that worked so well I suddenly had like seven duplicates LOL. Anyway, I deleted six of the duplicates and then was left with "duplicate 1" and I could see the edges of the original in back of that. So out of curiosity I clicked on the original again and it brought it forward - but then I never found how to get back to my duplicate that I know was there somewhere. So therefore I closed the program and started over. THEN.....when I opened one of the files to begin again....and to duplicate to work with a duplicate and not the original - when I press Shift and D it doesn't duplicate this time.

One of the things (actually two things) I most appreciate you told me is about right clicking the file to see which programs to open it in. Because out of momentary frustration doing this PSP version of the files I switched over to the Publisher files and right clicked on one of those and it opened again right away in Publisher for me (I had been going the "long way around" and opening the program first, then clicking on File and Open etc.). And then it's ready for me to go in Publisher and do whatever I need to. However the second good thing you told me that I think I need to do even when using these in Publisher is to work with a copy and not the original. That's something I would always do in DIP but somehow wouldn't have occurred to me otherwise - duh.

For the time being I really have to take my shower since it's now 10:30 am and I've been fiddling with this for about 90 minutes this time LOL. I'll come back to it as soon as I'm done. I do think I'm making progress though a little at a time with help with PSP



Ruth

Other quick question - what does "read only" mean? I get that on some of these (maybe they're all like that - for each individual of the 50 states) when I go to "copy" or "save as" when I think that will work to make a duplicate to work with and not the original. More later -
It's a good thing I have until beginning of November to figure a way to do these though it would be nice to know how - which ever program I use - before that.

Ruth

that one Ruth...I'm not sure! LOL

Maybe someone else will come on and know.

First of all yesterday I remembered I had a user guide for Jasc PSP 7 which had come with the program that someone online had sold me really cheaply quite a while back. And on my shelf I discovered (or RE discovered) I had two other PSP books: PSP 9 and Studio in Easy Steps. That was 9.95 I know I got at Barnes & Noble a while back. They have a website www.ineasysteps.com. And the third book is Corel PSP X The Official Guide by Dave Huss and Lori J. Davis. That was a 29.99 book I had bought at one of the bookstores - probably Barnes & Noble. Not sure if that will just make things even more confusing for me, but at least I have some reference books LOL

In addition a couple of people over at pcCrafter have offered a few thoughts. One of them shared this website that she said she has found very helpful:
http://www.michelespaintshop.com/

And G, this is what Dee Ann over at pcCrafter told me about the "read only" stuff:

Read Only- Right click on the file. In the General tab look for attributes. It's at the bottom. Uncheck read only, click apply. Now you can use the files.

When the files are copied to a disc Windows sometimes converts it to Read Only for some strange "Window Reason". This is just a goofy Windows thing usually.

And so far I have been able to create a license using Publisher (even though I STILL want to learn how to do it in PSP), and then this morning I was inspired to open that Publisher license up and see if I could save it as a PNG (I'd never bothered to want to save any of my Publisher things in that format before). And yes, I was able to save it as a PNG, which allowed me to open it in DIP 10. Still wasn't able to work with it in DIP but what I was able to do was print out various smaller sizes of the license in DIP easily that I wasn't having much luck doing with Publisher. When I tried to set up the size in Publisher to a more regular license size, I wasn't able to reduce all the info on it as well. So even though this is quite a roundabout way of doing what I want, at least there's a way I can do it that way for now