Blinkie Tutorial

I decided to go ahead and make a new Blinkies Tutorial since I have learned so much about making blinkies and making templates for those blinkies. It makes things much easier and faster that way. Please do not copy this tutorial and claim it as your own, do not add this tutorial to any other packages. It is fine if you want to link to this tutorial. Please respect these wishes, it takes a long time to complete a tutorial and get it online. Thank you!

This tutorial is written for PSP 7 and you do have to have some knowledge of PSP.

You will need to download the files seperately because this server does not allow zip files to be uploaded. You will need these files to complete this tutorial.

blinkie1.sel
blinkie2.sel
template.psp

Make sure you save these files in an easily located place on your hard drive.

Step 1:

Locate the file called template.psp, open it. it will look like this.



Step 2: Make a copy of "template.psp" by hitting shift + D so you can use the template over and over. You can now close off the original "template.psp" and use your copy.

Step 3:

Flood fill the center of the template with a color of your choice, I chose to use white #FFFFFF. Then go to Selections-->select none. Your image should now look like this.



Step 4:

Now click on the magic wand and click on the outside edge of your image. Now choose a border color, I chose to use red--#C00000. Now flood fill the edge with your choice of color. Go to Seletions-->select none. Your image should now look like this:

Step 5:

Now click on your zoom tool and click on your image 3 times to make it larger, therefore easier to work with.

Step 6:

It would be a good time to add your text or whatever images you want to add to your blinkie.



If you add an image to your blinkie, you will have to merge the layers, so go to Layers-->merge visible.

Step 7:

Now click on your layer palatte. and this is what will pop up.



Rename "merged" to "layer1".

Step 8:

Now go to selections, load from disk, browse to the folder that you downloaded the files to and locate "blinkie1.sel", click open. You should now see marching ants on your image.

Step 9:

Now choose a color for your first set of blinkies(marching ants), I chose to use yellow #FFFF40, and flood fill the ants with that color. Your image will look like this.



Step 10:

Next go back to Selections-->load from disk and locate "blinkie2.select", click open, and you will see a different set of marching ants.



Choose a different color for this set of blinkies and flood fill. I chose to use blue #4040FF. Go to Selections-->Select none. Your blinkie will now look like this.



Step 11:

Right click on "layer1" and duplicate once.



Step 12:

Now right click on "copy of layer 1" and rename it "layer 2".



Step 13:

Now on your layer palette and highlight "layer 2"(click on it) and turn off visibility on "layer1"(click on the eyeglasses next to layer 1) as indicated on the example below.



Step 14:

Go back to Selections-->load from disk and once again click on "blinkie1.sel" you will the marching ants march around the first color of blinkies that you did.



Now use your second color choice and fill in the marching ants. The idea is to swap the colors on this layer which will give you the blinkie effect when you are finished your blinkie. You will now notice that all the little squares are the same color.



Step 15:

Go to Selections again, load from disk, and click on "blinkie2.sel" and open. This time flood fill the ants with your very first color choice, in this case it was yellow.



Step 16:

No go to Selections-->Select none, and this will turn off the marching ants. The hardest part is done.

Step 17:

Now back on your layer palette, turn the visibility back on for "layer1" by clicking on the eyeglasses again.



Step 18:

Now save your image as a psp file, do NOT save as a jpg or gif at this point. Do not close off your psp image in case you need to come back and make changes.

Step 19:

Now open up Animation Shop 3 and click on the very first icon, the Animation Wizard. or you can go directly to the folder and open your image, but I find the the animation is not as smooth that way. If you choose to go through the wizard, click "next" each time, until you get to the frame properties. Set the number to 10 and repeat animation indefinately.



Click Next

If you choose to go through way of the folder then click on the folder, find your image, click open, then go to "frame properties" and set it to 10, and you can skip Step 20.

Step 20:

Now add your image by clicking on "add image" locate your psp file and click open, click next.



Now just click finish and your image will open up as 2 files, these are the two layers on your image.

Step 21:

Now click on the "view animation" icon on the far right and make sure you are happy with your new blinkie. Then you can save it as a gif file. Just click next until it is done. Thats it! You have a new blinkie! Here is the finished blinkie.



This tutorial is ©2006 Heart N Soul