I love damask and I've wanted to make damask patterns for a while, but I haven't found the time. There are a lot of damask brushes available, but I think it is far easier to use a font. House of Lime has several dingbat fonts which are suitable. In this tutorial for Paint Shop Pro, I am using Ornamental Decorations and Ornamental Decorations II.
Supplies:
Damask Spacing Template
1. Open a canvas with a width to height ratio of 1 to 1.375. My canvas is 1200 x 1650 pixels.
2. The key to making a good tiling damask is to fill a diamond-shaped space in the center of the canvas. You can do this by eye, you can make your own diamond-shape, or you can use the template that I have provided. If you use the template, open it instead of a blank canvas.
3. Select your dingbat font of choice and set it to a large size. Make sure that 'Create as Vector' is selected. Type out your chosen dingbat.
4. If the dingbat is too small, then click on one of the solid squares and re-size the vector.
5. Move the dingbat to the desired location. I like to start off with a triangular dingbat for the points of the diamond.
6. Continue typing in characters from the dingbat font, re-sizing and moving them until the center space is filled.
7. Duplicate the vector layer with all the dingbats (Layers > Duplicate).
8. Convert the new vector layer to a raster layer (Layers > Convert to Raster Layer).
9. Center offset the raster layer (Effects > Image Effects > Offset). If you select the 'Center' option, then Paint Shop Pro will automatically calculate the correct numbers for horizontal and vertical.
Center = Checked
Edge mode = Wrap
10. Optional. If you want to be fancy, you can now use a damask border along the diagonal between the pattern. I used the 'q' from the Ornamental Decorations dingbat and rotated it using the handle. The key to making the border look seamless is to bring it close to the edge, but not have the dingbat go off the edge of the canvas.
11. Optional. Duplicate the layer and Ctrl + M to mirror.
12. Optional. Duplicate the layer and Ctrl + I to flip.
13. Optional. Duplicate the layer and Ctrl + M to mirror.
14. Optional. If you used the template, then hide the template layer.
This creates a seamless damask tile which can be used as an overlay or it can be re-colored and turned into a paper. Here is mine as an overlay both with and without the optional diagonal borders.
