While flipping through the junk mail catalogues I came across an advertisement  for an aquarium, which I felt had distinct possibilities using the Vizros filter. The biggest challenge was getting the water to appear transparent without being milky. The procedure I have used appears to do that quite successfully and also shows even more possibilities using this filter.

This tutorial requires a good understanding of PSP, especially using layers and the Deformation Tool although I have tried to make these instructions detailed enough for beginners to follow as well. Therefore more advanced users may not need to follow all steps shown.

Remember to save your file frequently and read the instructions carefully.
Mis-interpretation of the directions can have undesirable effects.

Step 1
Open the aquarium-bg.pspimage, water and sand jpegs and minimize for the time being.
Open a new transparent image 400 x 400 named "border" and flood fill with black.
Selections > Select All (CTRL + A)
Selections > Modify > Contract by 5 pixels. OK.
Hit the Delete key to remove the centre of the image, leaving a narrow  border.
Deselect.

Step 2
Use the Selection Tool (type rectangle) to increase the depth of the top border.
Flood fill with black and deselect.

Step 3
Add a new raster layer named "water".
In the Materials Palette click on the foreground colour and select Pattern.
Click on the drop down arrow and locate the water.jpg at the top of the listing.
Flood fill the new layer with the water pattern.
Turn off the layer by clicking on the eye to the right of the layer.

Step 4
Activate the border layer.
Effects > Plugins > Vizros 4 > Box
using the following settings for all pages.

The page properties area will need to be changed for all pages as listed below.

X Page - Image with Opaque set to 255.
Y Page - Image with Opaque set to 255.
Z Page - Solid and select Custom colour of dark grey. Opaque set to 255.
Background Page - Solid with colour white. Opaque set to 0.

Click OK

Step 5
Your image should look like this. Do not move the location of the box at this time!

Use the Magic Wand with the Mode set to Add (Shift), Tolerance 0
to select the front, side and top. Hit Delete, leaving just the black border of the aquarium.

Ctrl + D to Deselect.
Click on the eye in the Layer Palette to turn off the border layer.

Step 6
Activate the water layer and click on the eye to make it visible.
Effects > Plugins > Vizros 4 > Box
Use the same settings as before with the following Page Properties:

X Page - Image with Opaque set to 50.
Y Page - Image with Opaque set to 50.
Z Page - Solid and select Custom colour of dark grey. Opaque set to 255.
Background Page - Solid with colour white. Opaque set to 0.

Click OK.

Step 7
Move the water layer below the border layer (Layers > Arrange > Send to Bottom)
and then open the border layer.
Still on the water layer use the Magic Wand with the previous settings
 click on the top of the aquarium.
Selections > Modify > Contract by 2 pixels. OK
Cut (CTRL + X) and Paste as a New Layer (CTRL + L)
Deselect. Right click in the Layer Palette and rename this layer "base".

Step 8
Drag the base layer below the water layer (Layers > Arrange > Send to Bottom).
Use the Deformation Tool to move the base of the aquarium into position.

It will be necessary to rotate the base slightly to line it up with the front border.
You will also need to hold down the Shift key and push the back right hand corner
in slightly to line up the right hand side of the base with the side border.

It will also be necessary to drag the back centre handle and the left hand side centre handle
out slightly to increase the size of the base and line it up with visible back corner.

Hint: It may help to zoom out to 150% to see how far you need to
drag the back out to line up with the right hand back corner.

Step 9
Use the Freehand Selection Tool with the Selection type set to Point to Point,
Mode set to Add and Anti-alias checked.
Add a new raster layer named "left side".
Outline the left hand side of the aquarium and flood fill with black.

Selections > Select All (CTRL + A)
Selections > Modify > Contract by 2 pixels. OK.
Hit the Delete key to remove the centre of the aquarium side, leaving a narrow  border.
Flood fill with the water pattern and reduce the opacity to 60 in the layer palette.
Deselect.

Note: depending on how accurate your base is, it may be necessary to use the
 Freehand Selection Tool to outline any portion of the base
 which may be outside the glass panel and delete it on the base layer.

Step 10
Turn off all layers except the base layer. Click on the base layer to make it active.
Use the Magic Wand to select the base.
In the Materials Palette click on the foreground colour and select Pattern.
Click on the drop down arrow and locate the sand.jpg at the top of the listing.
Flood fill the base layer with the sand pattern and deselect.

Step 11
Open the aquarium-bg.pspimage and copy and paste as a new layer.
Use the Deformation Tool to position the background
 in place and fit to the frame shape.

Hint: For other backgrounds do a search on the Internet for aquariums

Decorating the Aquarium

Your aquarium is now finished and you are ready to add your fish, seaweed & shells tubes.
I've added a small selection in the zip file or check out these sites for more tubes.
arleensweb.com
psp-tubes.com

These should be added on separate layers between the border and water layers.
You will need to scale most tubes to around 25% - 50% depending of the original size.

When you are happy with the decoration of the aquarium turn off the base layer
and Merge > Visible on a the other layers.
Use the Magic Wand to select the the aquarium,
Selections > Select All (CTRL + A)
Selections > Modify > Expand by 1 pixels. OK.
Select the base layer and click on the eye to open.
Hit delete to remove any parts of the base outside the aquarium border.

Merge > Merge Visible.

You can now use the Mover Tool to relocate your aquarium as desired.

I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial. If you have any queries or find any instructions that need clarification in the tutorial don't hesitate to contact me.

Please help me keep this site up and running....
ANYTHING is appreciated, thank you so much!