This tutorial was written by me on September 18, 2020. The results are of my own imagination.  Any resemblance to another tutorial is purely coincidental.  

Please DO NOT claim this tutorial as your own.

This was written assuming you have a working knowledge of PS.

Please keep in mind that I write the tutorial as I am creating it.

Sometimes I may not explain properly where to place things so please see my example if you are ever in doubt :)

Supplies needed

I am using CS5 but this tutorial should work with any version.

You can download the 7 day trial of PS here.

PTU Tube:  I am using a beautiful tube called "Vampire" created by Amber.  Please do not use this tube without a proper license.  

You can purchase this tube at VM Artist's store here. 

PTU Kit:  I am using a gorgeous matching kit called "Vampire" created by Bella Caribena.  You can purchase the kit here.

PTU Animation:  I am using Rebel Dezigns animation 1719 from package 572.  You can purchase her fun animation at CDO here.

Mask:  I am using the mask the comes with the kit.

Font of choice for your name.

Plug in: None

Drop shadow of choice.

Please read all the Artist's/Designer's TOU.

Let's get started.

Remember to save your tag often in case PS crashes.  I always save my tags as a psd image.  It keeps all the layers and if you make tags for others you will always have the template.

To open an image, I click on the element or paper in the file folder and drag it into PS.

To transfer an element or paper in PS to my tag, I left click and drag it into my working canvas.  

The other way is to left click and drag the element from the folder right onto your tag. 

Either way you will get the same results :).  I will be using the first method for this tutorial.

For resizing, mirroring and rotating I use the Ctrl+T command.

Open a new 750x800 transparent image.  We will resize later.

Go to layers, New fill layer, solid color.  When the pop up window appears type in FFFFFF and click ok.

Drag mask 2 into your tag.  Hold down the shift key and pull the corners of the mask until it fits the canvas.

Drag element 3 into your tag.  Click the check mark.  Move to the top left of the mask.  Move to the top left of the mask.  

Drag element 2 into your tag.  Click the check mark.  Move to the top left of the mask.  Move to the left of the mask about midway.  

Holding down the ctrl key, click on the mask icon.  You should see marching ants.  You still should be on the ground spray layer if not select it in the layer pallet.  Go to layers, layer mask, reveal selection.  You should not see a mask icon next to the element in the layer pallet.

Ok so the mask hid some areas of the grass I wanted to show.  We are going to fix that.

With the layer highlighted in blue, click on the mask icon.  You should see a white box around the mask in the layer pallet.  

Set your foreground color to white.

Select your paint brush with the following settings. (I used a soft brush).

Ready?  Let's do a bit of painting on the mask.

Paint on the area you want to reveal.  I wanted the grass spray to show and removed a few holes in the bottom part of the mask by the web.  This is what my tag looked like after.  If you make a mistake and paint to much, just hit ctrl + alt + Z to undo it or change the foreground color to black and paint on the mask.  White reveals what is under the mask, black will hide it.  

Drag Wordart 6 (9) into your tag.  Click the link icon between the W and H and resize 70%.  Click the check mark.  Move to the top left over the moon.

Drag element 131 into your tag.  Click the link icon between the W and H and resize 30%.  Click the check mark. Edit, Transform, Flip Horizontal. Move to the top center of the mask.

Drag element 54 into your tag.  Click the link icon between the W and H and resize 45%.  Click the check mark.  Move to the top right of the mask.

Select the wordart layer,

Drag paper of choice into your tag.  I am using paper 7.   Click the link icon between the W and H and resize 70%.  Click the check mark.  Move to the top right of the mask under the frame into a spot you like best.

Select the frame layer.

Using the magic wand, click in the center of the frame.  Select, modify, expand by 3.

Select the paper layer.  Layers, Layer Mask, reveal selections.

Drag element 86 into your tag.  Click the link icon between the W and H and resize 70%.  Click the check mark.  Move to the top right of the frame.  Now holding down the alt key select the mask icon on the paper layer and drag this into your curtain layer.  You should now have two mask layers.  One on the curtain layer and one on the paper layer.

Drag element 165 into your tag.  Click the link icon between the W and H and resize 50%.  Click the check mark.  Move to the bottom center of the inside of the frame.

Select the frame layer.

Drag element 90 into your tag.  Click the link icon between the W and H and resize 50%.  Click the check mark. Move to the bottom right of the frame.

Drag element 50 into your tag.  Click the link icon between the W and H and resize 15%.  Click the check mark. Move to the bottom left of the frame.

Drag element 129 into your tag.  Click the link icon between the W and H and resize 15%.  Click the check mark.  Edit, transform, flip horizontal.  Move to the bottom right of the frame.

Drag element 65 into your tag.  Click the link icon between the W and H and resize 60%.  Click the check mark.  Move to the top right of the frame.

Drag element 18 into your tag.  Click the link icon between the W and H and resize 40%.  Click the check mark.  Move to the top left of the ground spray.

Drag element 19 into your tag.  Click the link icon between the W and H and resize 40%.  Click the check mark.  Move to the bottom bottom of the T in the wordart.

Drag element 105 into your tag.  Click the link icon between the W and H and resize 60%.  Click the check mark.  Move to the left of the vase.

Drag element 114 into your tag.  Click the link icon between the W and H and resize 50%.  Click the check mark.  Move to the bottom of the vase.

Drag element 30 into your tag.  Click the link icon between the W and H and resize 40%.  Click the check mark.  Move to the left so the top of the fountain is between the T & R of the wordart.

Drag element 37 into your tag.  Click the link icon between the W and H and resize 40%.  Click the check mark.  Move to the top of the books.

Drag element 38 into your tag.  Click the link icon between the W and H and resize 40%.  Click the check mark.  Move to the bottom left of the books.

Drag element 34 into your tag.  Click the link icon between the W and H and resize 40%.  Click the check mark.  Move to the bottom of the pumpkin.

Drag element 75 into your tag.  Click the link icon between the W and H and resize 30%.  Click the check mark.  Move to the top of the wordart.

Drag element 74 into your tag.  Click the link icon between the W and H and resize 30%.  Click the check mark.  Move to the left of the T in the wordart.

Drag element 110 into your tag.  Click the link icon between the W and H and resize 30%.  Click the check mark.  Move to the bottom left of the mask.

Drag element 119 into your tag.  Click the check mark.  Move to the bottom left of the mask.

Select the main tube. If you are using the vampire layers you will need to group these layers.  Hold down the ctrl key and select the layers you want to use.  Hit Ctrl + G on the keyboard to group them.  Click on the group or main tube and drag it over to your tag.  Hit Ctrl + T.  In your tool bar. Click on the link between the Width and Height to lock them.  When we type in a number it will resize both the width and Height as the same time.  Type 40% in the Width and then click on the check mark at the end of the tool bar.  Move the tube to the bottom left corner of the mask.  

If you grouped the tube layers, right click on the tube and convert to smart object then right click and rasterizes layer. Select the eraser tool (I used a soft brush) and erase the bottom sharp edge of the tube.

Duplicate the tube, go to Filter, Blur, Gaussian blur set to 3 and click ok.  Change the blend mode to soft light.

Drag element 120 into your tag.  Click the link icon between the W and H and resize 40%.  Click the check mark.  Move to the bottom left of the tube by the grass.

Drag element 26 into your tag.  Click the link icon between the W and H and resize 30%.  Click the check mark.  Move to the bottom center of the stones.

Drag element 77 into your tag.  Click the link icon between the W and H and resize 30%.  Click the check mark.  Move to the bottom right of the clock.

Drag element 60 into your tag.  Click the link icon between the W and H and resize 8%.  Click the check mark.  Move to the bottom of the clock.

Drag element 141 into your tag.  Click the link icon between the W and H and resize 20%.  Click the check mark.  Move to the bottom left of the tube.

Drag element 111 into your tag.  Click the link icon between the W and H and resize 180%.  Click the check mark.  Move to the middle of the tube's skirt.  See mine for placement.

Drag element 147 into your tag.  Click the link icon between the W and H and resize 80%.  Click the check mark.  Move to the bottom of the tube.  See mine for placement.

Drag element 96 into your tag.  Click the link icon between the W and H and resize 10%.  Click the check mark.  Move to the top right of the stones.  See mine for placement.

Drag element 93 into your tag.  Click the check mark.  Move to the bottom left of the tube.

Drag element 57 into your tag.  Click the link icon between the W and H and resize 15%.  Click the check mark.  Move to the bottom left of the tube.

Drag element 108 into your tag.  Click the link icon between the W and H and resize 40%.  Click the check mark.  Move to the right of the lantern.

Drag element 138 into your tag.  Click the link icon between the W and H and resize 30%.  Click the check mark.  Move to the bottom left of the lantern.

Drag element 143 into your tag.  Click the link icon between the W and H and resize 30%.  Click the check mark. Edit, transform, flip horizontal.   Move to the bottom right of the mirror.

Drag element 94 into your tag.  Click the link icon between the W and H and resize 40%.  Click the check mark.  Move to the bottom right of the skull.

Drag element 82 into your tag.  Click the link icon between the W and H and resize 30%.  Click the check mark.  Move to the bottom right of the blood pool.

Add any other elements you like and make any adjustments to the layers.

Crop away any extra space.  

Image, Image Size and resize 650 on the longest side.  See my settings below.

Oh almost forgot we need to drop shadow all of our elements.  I actually do the drop shadow at the end :)

Select the element on the bottom of your tag in the layer pallet and double click it.

A layer style window will pop up.  Click on Drop shadow. and use the following settings.

Now right click on the layer you just applied the drop shadow.  Click copy layer style.

Now click on the layer above and hold down the shift key, select the layer just under the paper layer.  Right click and paste layer styles.  

Select the frame layer hold down the shift key, select the main tube layer.  Right click and paste layer styles.  

Select the layer above the Gaussian blur tube, hold down the shift key, select the top layer.  Right click and paste layer styles. 

Drop shadow complete :)

Add your copyright and name.

If you do not want to animate.  Hide the white background layer Save your tag and export as png.

Might want to grab a coffee :)

Open Rebel Dezigns psd file in PS.  You will notice that there is 25 layers in this animation and it does not have the group layer.  That is ok as we are going to learn how to do this so it matches the animation layers of the tube.

We need to group all odd the layers.  Starting from layer 25, hold down your control key and select each odd layer so the next one will be 23 then 21 etc.  Once all the odd layers are selected (the layers will be highlighted in blue) we need to group them.  All odd layers selected? 

Next we need to group these layers.  Go to Layers, Group layers or Ctrl + G on the Keyboard.  You will see group 1 folder at the top.  Make sure Group 1 is selected.

Select the layer you would like the animation to be placed.  I selected the curtain layer under the frame layer.

Back to the animation.  Click on Group 1 and drag it into your tag.  Ctrl+T and resize 30%.  Move to a spot you like best.  I moved it to the top center of the frame.

Close the original animation and don't save changes.

Now we need to apply the mask that is on the curtain layer.  Holding down the alt key, click on the mask layer on the curtain layer, and drag it onto the animation group.  The mask is now applied :)

Click on the little white arrow beside Group 1 to expand it.  Click on the eyeball of each layer to hide it but leave frame layer 1 visible.  Click on the arrow beside group one to hide it as we do not want to accidentally make any changes.

Next make sure your animation viewer is open on the bottom of PS.  I you do not see a row that has Animation (Frames) on the bottom, go to Windows, Animation.

Next is animating.

Click on the little icon at the right end of the animation screen then select make frames from layers.

When the pop up shows select  Make Frames from Layers

You are going to see a big mess in the animation window but we are going to fix this.

Click on the first frame and click on the trash can in the animation window.  Repeat this until you reach the first frame of the animation.  

Now you should be at the first frame of the animation.  Click on frame 14 and hit the trash can.  Repeat for all the remaining frames.  You should be left with 13 frames in the animation window.  This is the amount of frames for our animation.

This next step is very important.  Any changes you do from here you must be on frame 1 in the animation window. It will be highlighted in blue.

Go to the bottom of your tag in the layers pallet.  Make sure you have animation frame 1 selected.

Click on the eyeball beside each layer to make it visible.  For the white base layer you may have to click on the eyeball a couple of times to make it visible in all the animation frames.  It's a Photoshop thing.  Do not touch the group layer.

Next, I want to slow down the animation.  With the first frame selected, hold down the shift key and click on frame 13.  This will select all the frames.

Next, click on the little black arrow beside the 0 sec as we want to change the speed.  A pop up window will appear.  

I selected 0.2 Sec.  Now click on the play button to view the animation.  Click on it again to stop it.

Click frame 1 again so we don't accidentally make any changes.

Now to save our tag as a gif.

Go to File, save for web device.

A new pop up window will appear.  Change the settings to my screen shot below.  Click on the image to enlarge it if needed.  Click save.  My screen shot will look different but the settings are the same.

I hope you have enjoyed my tutorial.  I would love to see your results.