This tutorial will show you how to make all the trees you see in my scene.

My canvas with the pixel outlines. You can download it here.

My color chart. Right click on it and save to your computer.

First, a few notes.....

My image is just a guide. Feel free to change the colors, or add other effects to your liking. I put everything on its own layer (and name each one). That way you can easily go back and change colors later and correct any mistakes you've made. It makes a lot of layers, but it also keeps things organized and will save you a lot of heartache, especially with an image that has as many pixels as this one.

It makes it easier if you enlarge your graphic (use your magnifier tool) so you can see the pixels clearly. Feel free to save my images in this tut too, and enlarge them as necessary to see.

The basic procedure for each piece will be the same. You'll add a new layer. Choose your paintbrush tool and set the size to 1 and paint the outline of the piece in a darker color and then paint the inside in a lighter color (Hint: to do the inside coloring, make the outline layer active, choose your magic wand and click inside the section you want to color - then apply the color on your new layer).

I've applied an inner bevel to some pieces, using the settings in the screenshot below (I'll tell you when to apply)

Step 1. Open up the canvas you downloaded. There are six layers - a background and 5 pixel outlines: a large evergreen, a small evergreen, a star for the top of the tree, an ornament, and a tree with bare branches.

Open up the color chart you saved. Copy and paste it as a new layer onto your image. Move it to the top, out of the way. When you need a color, just click on it with your dropper tool.

In the following steps, I'll show you the colors I used for each section of the graphic - feel free to change these as you wish.

Step 2. Large Evergreen.

Turn the large evergreen outline layer on and the other outline layers off.

Outline - 1 Inside - 2.

Merge the two layers you've just colored.

I applied an inner bevel to mine. To do so, choose your magic wand and click inside a section of the tree. Apply inner bevel (effects>3d effects>inner bevel), using settings in the screenshot above. Repeat this process until you've done all the sections of the tree (there are 7 sections).

Save your tree as a psp file (I named mine tree1).

I also made another variation of this tree. To do so, make the tree you just finished active. Set your paintbrush to white and paint the dark green bands on the inside, to look a bit like snow.

Save this tree as a psp file (name it something different than the last one, like "tree2").

Step 3. Small Evergreen

Turn all layers off except the background, the small evergreen outline, and your color chart.

Tree outline - 1 Tree inside - 3 Trunk outline - 4 Trunk inside - 5 Merge tree layers. Apply inner bevel same as in Step 2 above.

Turn off all layers except the green outline and green inside layer of your tree. Merge these two layers. Save your small evergreen as a psp file (I named mine "tree3").

I made a couple of more variations of this little tree. Turn off all layers except your merged small evergreen, color chart, and background.

Make your finished small evergreen tree layer active. Add a new layer. Choose color #6 and paint some pixels along the section lines. Turn off the color chart and background layers. Merge the tree and lights layers.

Save as a psp file (I named mine "tree4").

Turn all layers off except for the color chart and background layer.

I also made a tree with ornaments and a star. Make your ornament outline visible. Paint one ornament with color #7 and one with color #8. Turn your tree with lights on. Add a new layer. Choose your selection tool and draw around the red ornament. Copy and paste it onto your tree arranging as you wish. Repeat for the blue ornament.

Turn your star outline layer on. Paint the outside with color #9, inside with color #6 (just put it all on one layer). Move it to the top of your tree.

Turn color chart, background, and black outline layers off. Merge the tree, ornaments, and star layers. Save as a psp file (I've named my "tree5").

You can, of course, make other variations/combinations - try using different colors, mix and match the elements, etc.

Step 4. Bare Tree

Trunk outline - 10 Trunk inside & branches - 11 Apply inner bevel, changing depth to about 6.

Save as a psp file (I named mine "tree6").

Step 5.

You now have several variations which you can add to your scene. If you want to make more, just save the canvas with the pixel outlines and reuse it.

To return to the pixel village series of tutorials, go here.