If you can make a good tube out of a cat, you can tube just about anything.  I'm going to use a simple one of my cat photos to show you how.  By simple I mean there is not a lot of fur sticking out all over the place, and you don't have to deal with whiskers.  At the end of doing my cat Smokey, I will give you tips on how to deal with those issues.

Wondering what Tube My Cats is?  Ok PSP7 class & GB Members!  Do this tutorial, then pick one of my cats to tube and send me the tube!  You get a nice tube free to use however you want, and I get my cats all tubed!

1. If you are tubing something from a photo or a gif file, first select the object you want to tube with the Selection tool, copy it and paste it as a new image.  If it was a gif file, be sure to increase the colors to 16 million.  The first thing I do is to eliminate all the easy areas with just the Rectangle Selection tool.

See how I get a transparent background?  If you don't see that and instead you get a solid color, there are a couple of  ways to fix that.  Use the Selection tool to delete the background all around the edge of the image.  In other words, I would clear 5 or 10 pixels on the top and bottom, and on the left and right side of the image.  Then click on that cleared area with the magic wand.  Invert the Selection.  Copy and paste as a new image.  Now you will get a transparent background as you clear your image.

The best way to do this is to work with the Layer Palette.  Open up your layer palette.  Right click on the only layer there, it will say Background.  Click on Duplicate.

Don't close the palette yet.  Click on the Background.  If you have Customized your Toolbar, click on Select All.  If not, go to Selections/Select All.  Now flood fill the background layer with a bright, solid color.  Deselect and use the Mover tool or the Layer Palette to make the Duplicate layer active again.

2.  Do NOT have the Antialias checked at this time.  Go ahead and clear up all that area around the cat that you can easily with the Rectangle Selection tool.  See the image below.  Don't get near the furry parts yet.  For that we are going to use the Freehand Selection tool with Antialias checked.

If you haven't Duplicated the background layer and flood filled the Background with a solid color, add a new layer.  Flood fill that layer with a bright, solid color.  Move it to the bottom.  Now make your tube/image layer active again.  As you clear now you will be able to clearly see how it is coming along.