Entries from August 2008 ↓

Proflirts site down – callbutton script

The original open source callbutton script was written by Mistress V and graciously provided free of charge on her Proflirts website. Since then it has been modified by Hypnotic Guy into a thing of remarkable versatility. However, the original is simpler and may meet the needs of most flirts.

I had heard rumors that there were some changes going on, so I saved the script package for download. I was disappointed to hear this week that the Proflirts site was down. But since I have the script, I can supply it here. I even added a little text file on how to make your button script, which used to be on the Proflirts blog.

Keep in mind that this is not a beginner project. You will need a website of your own, and you will need to be comfortable following instructions to edit files in Notepad, even though you may not understand exactly what it is that you are doing.

Sorry, but the script has been disabled again by code changes on Niteflirt. If I get it fixed I will repost.

Making a tiled background in Paintshop Pro

I have wanted to do a lot of tutorials in Paintshop Pro, but I’m often stopped by the fact that a simple tutorial intended to help a newbie master a single technique often produces something that is less than a work of art, while techniques can get lost in tutorials that produce complex works of art.

Of course, my other beef with a lot of tutorials is that the newbie will have to download a lot of “materials”, including tubes, brushes, filters, and sometimes even buy them. In the end, if the newbie ends up following directions correctly and finishing whatever it is, she can’t really use it (the copyright still belongs to the designer) and the individual techniques have gotten lost in the details.

I’m sure you’ve seen lots of background images on myspace and other member sites where the images just repeats. It doesn’t match at all. There are just ugly seams.

I’m going to show you how to tile a background using Paintshop Pro. It’s a pretty simple way to do it. There are lots of other ways to do it, too, but let’s not get into that right now. If you’re interested in doing some research, there’s a link at the bottom of this tutorial where you can find out ways some artists do it.

Here is my baby Maude, hiding in plain sight on a rug.

Here she is tiled into a background.

Here we are in Paintshop Pro with the image open. Although impressive images can be made from big photos, they can take a very long time to load. So it’s better to plan on having a smaller image repeat. I reduced Maude’s photo greatly to make it this convenient size.

Select Effects=>Image Effects=>Seamless Tiling

This window pops up.

There are a lot of settings you can adjust in this window. I find that the “corner” and “bidirectional” tend to give less vertical and horizontal effect. You can zoom your view. You can also click the die on the far right to get random settings. If you lose yourself in random settings and want to get back, go up to the top and dropdown the preset menu. Choose “factory default”. You should play with the settings sometime to get a feel for what they can do.

I’m going to tick the “Show tiling preview” box, which will bring up a preview window.

This looks okay. You can adjust the magnification to see it better if you like.

Close it and hit the ‘OK’ button. Maude is now tiled.

The page

For lots more info on tiling backgrounds and even some freebies, Visit this blog, where you’ll find a collection of tutorial links halfway down the page. I’ve looked at a few of them. You can do some amazing things, but have your patience ready!

Richard Kern’s Guide to Erotica

This is an online article that everyone who has ever thought of taking sexy photos of themselves or anyone else should read. It has all kinds of helpful tips on the mechanics of sexy photography, as well as a cool slideshow of his work, which unfortunately did not permit itself to be embedded here.

He’s made a lot of photography books, but I couldn’t find one that the article seemed to be about. Just bookmark it. It may come in very handy for you very soon or at a later date.

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