PSP: Using Blend Ranges For Selective Colour Adjustment
This is a Paint Shop Pro technique that allows you to adjust the colour balance of the red/green/blue tones in an image individually, similar to the way the selective colour tool works in Photoshop.
For advanced-level/confident users. Instructions cover PSP 7* and PSP 8, but should be translatable to newer editions.
* Edit: It seems not all versions of PSP 7 support blend ranges. Version 7.04 does, 7.0 doesn't, not sure about versions in between. If your layer properties doesn't have the 'blend ranges' tab, your version of PSP 7 may be too old to use this tutorial. Sorry, folks.
Using Blend Ranges For Selective Colour Adjustment
This is not so much a tutorial for a specific effect as a way of making do-it-yourself adjustment layers. It works best in PSP 8 and upwards because they support layer groups, but it is possible to achieve a simplified version of it in PSP 7 too.
Setting Up the Layers
PSP 7:
1. Duplicate your base three times. Name the three new layers, going from bottom to top, 'Reds', 'Greens' and 'Blues'.
PSP 8+:
1a. Duplicate your base. Then right click on the duplicate layer and select New Layer Group. The layer should now be sitting inside a group named 'Group 1'.
1b. Right click on the layer inside the group and select New Adjustment Layer > Colour Balance. Don't alter any settings on the Colour Balance Layer yet, just click OK. It should appear inside the group above the other layer, like this:
1c. Select the 'Group 1' layer and duplicate it twice. You'll now have a stack of three groups, each one containing a copy of the base and a Colour Balance layer. Name the groups, going from bottom to top, 'Reds', 'Greens' and 'Blues'.
All Versions:
2. Double click on the layer named 'Reds' to bring up Layer Properties. (If you're following the PSP 8 instructions, make sure you click on the group itself, not one of the layers inside it.)
Inside Layer Properties, click on the Blend Ranges tab. From the drop down list, choose Red Channel. You'll see this:
You need to alter the settings on the lower of the two bars, the one titled 'Underlying Layer'. Grab the upper left triangle with the mouse, and drag it all the way over to 255 on the right. The result should look like this:
Setting up a blend range varies the transparency of the selected layer. Instead of all pixels having the same transparency, the opacity of each individual pixel is calculated based on the rules set in the blend ranges tab. The rule that we've set up here says that this layer is transparent over areas of the layer beneath that don't contain any red, and gets steadily more visible as the amount of red increases.
Click OK to close Layer Properties. A new symbol will appear on the layer palette to show that the layer has blend range data set. In PSP 7 it's a coloured squiggle next to the layer name, and in PSP 8 it's this symbol here:
3. Now open the Layer Properties for the layer called 'Greens'. Click on the Blend Ranges tab and this time select Green Channel. You'll see an identical display, only in green. Alter the 'Underlying Layer' bar in exactly the same way as you did for the reds.
4. Open the Layer Properties for the layer called 'Blues'. Click on the Blend Ranges tab and this time - you guessed it - choose Blue Channel. Make the same change to the 'Underlying Layer' bar.
Congratulations! You now have your own homemade selective colour tool. In PSP 7 it should look like this:
And the PSP 8 version looks like this:
How to Use
Because of the way the blend ranges are set up, any adjustment you make to one of the Reds/Greens/Blues layers will only be visible on pixels that contain that particular colour. The greater the amount of red/green/blue present, the stronger the effect will be. For instance, here's a Colour Balance adjustment that's been applied to the whole image:
to 
And here's the exact same adjustment, applied only to the 'Blues' group:
to 
In the PSP 8 version, you already put a Colour Balance adjustment layer into each group while you were setting them up, so you can just fiddle with those to tweak each set of colours. In PSP 7, unfortunately, there's no way to group layers together, so it won't work if you try to use adjustment layers: you need to use the Colours > Adjust > Colour Balance tool directly on whichever layer you want to tweak. (Edit: Forgot to add that in PSP 7, you won't be able to see what's happening to the image as a whole from the preview that the Colour Balance tool gives. Make sure you switch Auto Proof on and look at the effect on the image itself, not the preview.)
The technique isn't just limited to Colour Balance adjustments, either; in the PSP 8 version you can stack any combination of raster and adjustment layers within the groups. It's not as sophisticated as the Photoshop Selective Colour tool, but with a bit of experimentation you can produce some quite similar effects.
Example Fixes Made With Variations On This Technique
to 
to 
to 
Questions/problems/issues? Just drop me a comment. I'd love to see any interesting results as well, since I haven't had the chance to do much experimenting with this technique yet.
For advanced-level/confident users. Instructions cover PSP 7* and PSP 8, but should be translatable to newer editions.
* Edit: It seems not all versions of PSP 7 support blend ranges. Version 7.04 does, 7.0 doesn't, not sure about versions in between. If your layer properties doesn't have the 'blend ranges' tab, your version of PSP 7 may be too old to use this tutorial. Sorry, folks.
Using Blend Ranges For Selective Colour Adjustment
This is not so much a tutorial for a specific effect as a way of making do-it-yourself adjustment layers. It works best in PSP 8 and upwards because they support layer groups, but it is possible to achieve a simplified version of it in PSP 7 too.
Setting Up the Layers
PSP 7:
1. Duplicate your base three times. Name the three new layers, going from bottom to top, 'Reds', 'Greens' and 'Blues'.
PSP 8+:
1a. Duplicate your base. Then right click on the duplicate layer and select New Layer Group. The layer should now be sitting inside a group named 'Group 1'.
1b. Right click on the layer inside the group and select New Adjustment Layer > Colour Balance. Don't alter any settings on the Colour Balance Layer yet, just click OK. It should appear inside the group above the other layer, like this:
1c. Select the 'Group 1' layer and duplicate it twice. You'll now have a stack of three groups, each one containing a copy of the base and a Colour Balance layer. Name the groups, going from bottom to top, 'Reds', 'Greens' and 'Blues'.
All Versions:
2. Double click on the layer named 'Reds' to bring up Layer Properties. (If you're following the PSP 8 instructions, make sure you click on the group itself, not one of the layers inside it.)
Inside Layer Properties, click on the Blend Ranges tab. From the drop down list, choose Red Channel. You'll see this:
You need to alter the settings on the lower of the two bars, the one titled 'Underlying Layer'. Grab the upper left triangle with the mouse, and drag it all the way over to 255 on the right. The result should look like this:
Setting up a blend range varies the transparency of the selected layer. Instead of all pixels having the same transparency, the opacity of each individual pixel is calculated based on the rules set in the blend ranges tab. The rule that we've set up here says that this layer is transparent over areas of the layer beneath that don't contain any red, and gets steadily more visible as the amount of red increases.
Click OK to close Layer Properties. A new symbol will appear on the layer palette to show that the layer has blend range data set. In PSP 7 it's a coloured squiggle next to the layer name, and in PSP 8 it's this symbol here:
3. Now open the Layer Properties for the layer called 'Greens'. Click on the Blend Ranges tab and this time select Green Channel. You'll see an identical display, only in green. Alter the 'Underlying Layer' bar in exactly the same way as you did for the reds.
4. Open the Layer Properties for the layer called 'Blues'. Click on the Blend Ranges tab and this time - you guessed it - choose Blue Channel. Make the same change to the 'Underlying Layer' bar.
Congratulations! You now have your own homemade selective colour tool. In PSP 7 it should look like this:
And the PSP 8 version looks like this:
How to Use
Because of the way the blend ranges are set up, any adjustment you make to one of the Reds/Greens/Blues layers will only be visible on pixels that contain that particular colour. The greater the amount of red/green/blue present, the stronger the effect will be. For instance, here's a Colour Balance adjustment that's been applied to the whole image:
to And here's the exact same adjustment, applied only to the 'Blues' group:
to In the PSP 8 version, you already put a Colour Balance adjustment layer into each group while you were setting them up, so you can just fiddle with those to tweak each set of colours. In PSP 7, unfortunately, there's no way to group layers together, so it won't work if you try to use adjustment layers: you need to use the Colours > Adjust > Colour Balance tool directly on whichever layer you want to tweak. (Edit: Forgot to add that in PSP 7, you won't be able to see what's happening to the image as a whole from the preview that the Colour Balance tool gives. Make sure you switch Auto Proof on and look at the effect on the image itself, not the preview.)
The technique isn't just limited to Colour Balance adjustments, either; in the PSP 8 version you can stack any combination of raster and adjustment layers within the groups. It's not as sophisticated as the Photoshop Selective Colour tool, but with a bit of experimentation you can produce some quite similar effects.
Example Fixes Made With Variations On This Technique
to to to Questions/problems/issues? Just drop me a comment. I'd love to see any interesting results as well, since I haven't had the chance to do much experimenting with this technique yet.