This tutorial can also be found at the Paint Shop Pro Users Group web site. It was origingally from the State of Entropy web site so they should really take the credit. But I've changed it a little and added a few of my own steps which I think achieve a better effect.

You will need to use:  - the "flood fill" tool,  - layers,  - sharpening and  - two patterns provided in this tutorial.

Step 1:  Open your image which you want to convert into a puzzle. Please note that the puzzle pattern does darken the image a little. You can brighten your image now if you wish by clicking "colours - adjust - brightness/contrast". Here is the image I will be using.

Step 2:  Save the two images below by right-clicking them and selecting "save image as". These patterns will be used to provide the puzzle effect. Thank you to State of Entropy for providing these images.

highlight.jpg shadow.jpg

Step 3:  Create a new layer by clicking "layers - new" so that you don't change the image itself. All you will be doing is applying a puzzle pattern over the image. In the "properties" menu, change the opacity of the layer to 20%.

Step 4:  Select the "flood fill" tool and make sure the opacity is set to 100. Open the two patterns you saved in step 2. In the "fill style" field for the "flood fill" control menu, select "pattern". Now click "options" and select "highlight" from the "new pattern source" menu. Click on the image.

Step 5:  Repeat step 4 but this time select "shadow" as your "new pattern source".

Step 6:  Select "layers - merge - merge all" so that you are left with only one layer. If you want, you can also sharpen the image by clicking "image - sharpen - sharpen more". The final image should look something like this.

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