It’s a gift any mother would love: A calendar filled with month-by-month shots of her very own child. And Clayton Kratzer of Watertown, WI, got a lot of satisfaction (and quite a few brownie points) by creating it.

“I was married in 1998 and we had a son in 2003. After a while, I realized I had all these months of photos on the computer. I thought a calendar would be a great thing for my wife and a great thing for me because I love working with the photos. I made one version for her, another version for her parents, and another for my mom, which had pictures of them with the baby.”

The whole process took several weeks and the calendar was created exclusively using Paint Shop Pro 9. “I kept photos in folders on my computer for each month. It took a couple of weeks to pick out which photos I wanted to work with, then each individual page took a couple of days to create in PSP. I got the order in by the end of November so I could hand them out for Christmas,” Kratzer said.

“I decided to work around a theme for each month,” Kratzer continued. “For April [for example], I went with an artsy, spring theme. For the top photo, I did a watercolor effect with a script. The middle image was done with a pencil sketch script. The last image I used an art effect (paint brush) and I played with settings a lot. Sometimes the scripts are better because there’s not as many variables as with the art effects. I finished with Picture Tubes for the flowers and butterflies, and a grass background that was one of the backgrounds included in Paint Shop Pro.”

Kratzer said his subject lent itself to a lot of creative, fun options. “One of the things I was fascinated with was how many expressions my son had. I devoted a page to that theme [June]. I had a whole bunch of photos of just his face that I framed with film picture frames. First, I copied a picture frame image across the page. I made the background transparent [on the picture layers] so that the film would show through. Then, I put all the pictures on top of the layer that had the film on it.”

Like all artists, Kratzer had his favorite tools that he used. “I used a lot of ‘paint effects’ scripts. I also had a bunch of scripts that I got off another site. I like the pencil scripts a lot better now. I think they really improved with Version 9. Also, with Version 9, I’ve been getting into working with layers, letting some of the photo show through.”

A Web designer by trade, Kratzer has always had a creative bent. “Legos were big with me when I was a kid” he said, “and drawing.” He went to school for architecture for three years before deciding that it wasn’t the career he was looking for. He started with his current company, one of Pepsi’s bottling companies, in 1995. “I did data entry first, then the time came that the company wanted to get into intranet stuff. So I took classes in Web site design.” He has been a Web developer ever since. “I use Paint Shop Pro for all my graphics at work,” Kratzer said.

Will there be a baby calendar for 2005? “I can’t get out of it now,” Kratzer laughed, “it was such a huge hit.” Plus, there is a new little photo subject in the family, a baby girl born October 2004. “I’ll be doing these calendars for a long time,” Kratzer said. “and I’m sure I’ll always use Paint Shop Pro.”

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