I don't have photoshop, and am still struggling through many areas of PSP. So many skills I still want to develop, and now that I am homeschooling our son, so much less time...
Anyway, the hardest thing for me is making a good looking seamless tile, and one that doesn't have that quilted look to it. I know how to spot photos that scream out "Good for a seamless tile". But sometimes one has to use textures that aren't so seamless tile friendly. Like tree bark.
I know of Texture Maker, but the controls for that are too high level for me. Still, a definite to get later on, as it looks really good, once one knows what to do with it.
I found Seamless Texture Generator, by Shawn C. Swift, and it seems quite nice for many types of tiles. We're getting that when the income tax refund arrives. It's nice and simple to use, free-standing rather than a plugin, and quite affordable. It also looks like a good one for our 7 year old son to use for his graphic work. But it is a simplistic program, and I still would like to get another program as well.
Are there any other seamless tile programs that are either plugins that work with PSP9, or are free-standing programs, and are reasonably simple to use?
Can you start by posting bark. Post different ones and we'll show the up side of making a tilable and the things to look for and correct before going to the seamless step.
As for programs seamless texture generator (STG) Pro is the one that most's comes up as industry standards for doing it quick. But they later clone more and add grudge maps and other layers.
I like seamless factory as it works with the mathematics of the X sides and the y top bottom. So you can drag and stop at any point. Cloning after that will make it look nice.
Check your brushes to see if you have drop shadow brushes. psp and photoshop are close to the same thing but control may be in a different spot.