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Animations
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Animations
Created by: Kawliga

 
We have a special guest tonight from JASC, it is Todd who's going to be giving a tutorial on making animations in PSP.

In order to create an animation, all we need to do is create a multi-layered psp file in Paint Shop Pro and open it in Animation Shop. The first step is to create a new image or open an existing image with a transparent background. You can use any small image or text etc.

 
So ... Open a new image, 100 x 100 pixels, background transparent, 16 Mil colors.
 
To keep this easy, we can just use a letter by typing an "A" on our first layer. So click on the Text tool and somewhere in your image and type an "A" in the dialog box (Stroke = None, Fill = black or another color of your choice, textures = None; font and other settings to your liking, only the Antialias option shouldn't be checked since we want to make a transparent animated gif out of it).
 
Click on OK and move your "A" into the right half of your image. Right-click to deselect.
 
The next step is to copy this layer into the clipboard by having our "A" layer active and going to Edit || Copy.
 
      Then go to Edit || Paste || As New Layer.

When the "A" is placed in our image, the Mover tool is activated, and we need to position it slightly in front of the existing "A".

 
Repeat this process by going again to Edit || Paste || As New Layer (you don't have to keep copying the layer because it remains in the clipboard). Repeat this step until you've got 5 "A" layers all in all.
 
Once that is completed, go to File || Save as and save as a .psp file. Then go to File || Jasc Software Products || Launch Animation Shop.
 
In Animation Shop, go to File || Preferences || General Program Preferences, and on the "Layered Files" tab select "Keep layers as separate frames". Click on OK.
 
Go to File || Open and select the file we saved in Paint Shop Pro. When Animation Shop opens the image file, it will import each layer as a separate frame.
 
You can view the animation by using the "View Animation" button on the toolbar.
 
Save the animation using the desired settings in the Optimization Wizard to reduce the file size of the image for the web.

You can also do variations of this; the initial image needs to be 16 mil (psp) file for layers. Animation Shop also has built-in effects for text and images that are very simple to use.