Hi there... I'm going to show you how to make this blinkie above.. I have supplied this blue bkg and snowmen in a pspimage format.. and also have supplied you with some frames I made, also the one I'm using in this sample.. that I didn't make. I'm using PSP 9 to make this blinkie.

SUPPLIES HERE

Put the brushes in your brush folder inside docs/mypspfiles

You will also need Super Blade Pro for this frame..

 Get the free trial of SBP here and the coconut ice preset here. Put the M_coconutice preset in your Super Blade Pro/environments folder that's in your plugins folder

Open up the PSP image I had in the supplies zip.. as you see on the layer palette there is a top FRAME layer.. there is nothing on that.. choose WHITE on your foreground color.. and find the frame you would like to use... on your drop down previews of your brushes.. and 'stamp' your brush on the canvas as shown.

Make sure the Frame layer is selected on the layer palette and  go to selections/select all/float.

Go to EFFECTS/Plugins and find your Flaming Pear/Super Blade Pro

Notice the Red arrow below.. this is where you browse to the mydocs/mypspfiles/plugins/superbladepro/environment folder. This is where you will find the M_coconutice preset or whichever preset you want to use.

I used the M_candycane_redwhitegreen.q5q preset that I downloaded from the preset site I gave you above. To make the striped frame... you can use solid color also then apply the clear M_coconutice.q5q preset if you want.

Go to EFFECTS/3D effects/ drop shadow and apply with these settings below.

Use your ERASE tool set on 50 size and MAKE SURE your on the blue bkg layer and erase the blue that's on the outside of the oval frame. Be very careful not to erase the area inside the oval... if you mess up...UNDO * Ctrl + Z * and do over..

Don't forget to erase the lil bit of the Snowman layer that's on the outside of the oval frame now..

It should look like this below when your all done..

ADD a new layer.. and DRAG it to the bottom of the layer palette and fill with WHITE and merge ALL. So  now you have one merged layer.

This sample below.. is the Presets shape tool that you use to make your blocks for the blinkie.. Make sure the MODE is set on the square.. see there on top left?

NOTE**** you don't have to use the square preset shape you can use hearts, bows, stars.. etc ****

Click and draw out one lil square like below NOT too big...* forground color on white or black.. and background color on NULL......when you use the preset shape tool, it will make the block vector. right click on the vector layer and convert to Raster layer. You should have two layers now.. the background merged layer and the Raster 1 layer that's the one block. RIGHT click and NAME your layers.. don't forget this.. it helps keep it all straight.

Making sure your on the block layer, go to SELECTIONS/ select all/ float,  Your lil block should have the marching ants around it.....then right click on the top of your graphic window and COPY.

And paste as new selection, this puts the block on your mouse pointer and you can position it where you want it.. when you left click it 'drops' the block where you clicked.. (CANT move it after you've clicked)  so make sure its where you want it.....you don't have to copy anymore.. cause you copied the first time.. all you do now is right click on top of graphic window again and paste as new Selection ... keep doing this till you get all the blocks where you want them.. doing this it puts all the blocks on the same layer also..

Now comes the tricky part... U should have two layers now.. background merged layer on bottom and the Blocks layer. However many blocks you have.. I have 7 here.. you duplicate the block layer enough times to make same amount of layers as you do blocks.. I have 6 duplicates of that block layer so 7 all together.

 X out or hid all the block layers except the bottom one...Start with the BOTTOM block layer on the layer palette .. USE your magic wand tool.. set on 20 Tolerance  0 feather and click INSIDE the block.. make sure your on the correct block that's the bottom layer. The inside of the block should be selected now and go to Selections/modify/ Expand   1 pixel click ok. Now fill it with whatever color you want the blocks to be. X that block layer you just filled  and UN hid the next one up... use magic wand and select inside the block and go to selections/modify/expand  1 pixel  click OK again. Do this with each of the block layers. filling with color on EACH of the layers...

Expand 1 pixel as shown. Then you fill with color..

When your done filling the blocks with color... however many block layers you have.. * I have 7 here * you have to duplicate your BKG layer now .. so there is same amount of it as there is of block layers..

you drag EACH block layer down on top of a BKG layer.. so from top to bottom you have blocks.. bkg.. blocks... bkg.. blocks.. bkg.. so on and so on.. look at the sample below. Highlight a block layer then right click merge/merge down. Click on the next block layer and merge/merge down... Merging down.. will merge the layer that is highlighted and the ONE layer below it only... so your merging a block and a bkg layer together. I ended up with 7 layers after I did all that.. but it depends on how many blocks you did.. if you originally had 10 blocks then you end up with 10 merged layers..

When your done merging your layers.. SAVE AS an Animation Shop (*.psp) file type.

Open your Animation shop and open this blinkie you just saved over in PSP.  You might want to slow the animation down.. The speed is set to 10 by default... you go to EDIT and SELECT all  (Ctrl + A) and right click on any frame and go down to Frame Properties..

And set to 30 or whatever speed you like..

This button is the preview animation button. so you can view what it looks like before you save it...

SAVE AS .GIF

THIS below is an added feature you might want to do...

Ok I don't have screen shots of this.. BUT... if you want.. the animation of your blinkie to go in one direction then go backwards  not just start over.. you select ALL your animation frames and COPY then click on the LAST frame and PASTE/after selected frame. then while those are selected go to Animation and REVERSE frames that way. depending on how you did the blinkies.. but they go on from left to right.. back left again..... not left right.. left right... they go in both directions in other words.. it does double the size of the animation.. and makes it twice as many frames but its a nice effect too.

HOPE you enjoyed this tutorial and were able to understand..

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Here's another sample