Why 'Kandy's wonder ding masks'?   First, Kandy told me how she makes hers and then I changed a couple things to make it what I consider to be a little more stable, but it's still her little secret . . . until now!  'Ding', of course because you use dingbat fonts to make them.  'Wonder', because it's a wonder what you can come up with!  LOL  Anyway, there are 2 parts.

Creating a Ding Mask
 

Step 1
Open a new image, match the settings (if you can make them out).

Image is transparent.  Kandy floods the image with black at this point (to be honest, I keep forgetting to).

Step 2
I select a rectangle the entire height and the width I pick at random.

Step 3
I flood it with white then added a new layer - DON'T forget the new layer.

Step 4
I set the text color to white and as you can see (almost) in the image below, for some reason I set it to black before I opened the text editor and didn't notice it because I was looking for a ding.

set size drop down to '72', highlight the '72' and type in '96';
this dingbat is letter 'n' in the Fleurons font.
 

Step 5
Click okay and the ding remains selected and where I noticed I goofed.  Now I should have undone it and selected the white but I got to looking at it and wondered (this is where the 'Wondering' came into play) if it would create a reversed effect on the ding if I left it this way - so I left it.

Step 6
Move the ding where you want it and this is the time to use your deformation tool to rotate it if you feel that it needs rotated.  While the ding is still selected, use Edit/Copy to use again.  Now a couple two or three things are possible here:  you could choose to use only one ding;  you might want to use a combination of dings;  you might want to make a string of the same ding or you might want to use the reversal of the ding which is what I decided on here.  So, I pasted another copy to the same layer, then flipped it once, then mirrored it.

Step 7
While the second ding was still selected, I moved it into position next to the first.

Step 8
I used the 'Selection' menu to 'select all' then grabbed the rectangle selection tool and clicked on the ding to close the selection into it, I moved it around until I thought I had a good position.

Step 9
Right now, I know I will need a precise measurement of the height, so I Copy/Pasted to a new image.  While I let the cursor hover over the new image,

I checked the lower right corer of the screen to see what the height measurement was;  in the case, it was 245 pixels for the height.

Step 10
Now that I know the height, I let the cursor hover with the crosshair right over the top selection line and check the coordinances to see what line to start my crop line on.  Next, I move the cursor to the left edge at 0 and the pixel number I just found and start the drag to the right - all the way across the 1025 width and then down until I have reached the 245 height.

marked number is the height of the selection

Step 11
I look the selection over and make sure I got started right on the edge - if it doesn't look good, I undo and try it again.

Step 12
Next I crop to selection.  Now I have an image that is 1025 pixels wide and 245 pixels in height.

Step 13
Next I add a new layer for the black fill.  masks are best made using black and white.

Step 14
Using the Layer Palette, drag the layer you just name 'black' from the top of the pile to the bottom.

Step 15
Set you flood fill color to black and get your bucket (flood fill tool) and click somewhere on the image.  At this point, I'm almost sure the mask is going to reflect my earlier good with the black fill on the ding and white outline.  (You'd have had to do that deliberately in PSP6 - in PSP7, you do it all the time by mistake!)

Step 16
Okay, I'm ready to try it and at this point - I MUST merge all layers to flatten the image.  Now it is possible at this point to flood fill a larger 'new' image with this image to create a repetitive pattern but I figure I can do that by tiling the image I make from it and have better control over the 'repeat' tiling this way.

Step 17
And here we go,  it's ready to create the mask!  From the 'Mask' menu, select New/From Image.

Step 18
Match the settings because the black is the part we want masked out.  If the wording seems backwards - it doesn't matter - it has to be this way to create a mask that will mask out out the area which in our source image is black.

My hunch paid off - it did just what I was wondering if it would do.  (I'm not always that lucky!)

Step 19
Using the 'Mask' menu, select 'save to disk' to save your mask for later use

Give it a name you will remember - I always put my initials in from of it so the ones I make will be kept together and easier to find.  If I can't think of something that relates to the shape, I just pull a name out of the air.

*NOTE*  Remember the height of the original mask is 245 - you might want to incorporate the height into the name of the mask so you will remember it.  Later when you use the mask - if you use it on a taller image, the pattern will stretch to fit and if you use it on a shorter image, it will squash together to fit - kind of like it adjusts to fill the height of the image you use it on for a perfect tiling.

You have now completed creating the mask and you can close the image without saving it or save it in psp format, just in case!

If you know how to use a mask you can stop here and close the window or you can continue to:

Using your Mask.

Zipped tutorial in pdf format is a 1533KB download.

tutorial by CSGreen