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Adding
Sparkles
Tutorial
for PSP 8
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| For this tutorial you will need a sparkle tube, you can
get mine HERE. Save the tube in your tubes folder (no need to
unzip it first). Please feel free to use this sparkle tube with
other projects and share it with your friends, just don't claim it as
your own or try to copyright it - its really just a small cross with
faded ends on a transparent background.
Make sure your Layer Pallet is visible -
if not Click the View menu, Pallets and select it to turn it on.
Start with your image, to which we are
going to add sparkles, open in PSP. If it is not a single layer,
go to Layers menu, Merge, Merge All (flatten).
Sparkles have to be added on several
layers, so that they will be separate frames of an animation. For
a natural look, you need to put sparkles on bits of your image that
would be shiny. In this example I'm going to be putting them on
the name part of the tag, but its really up to you where you put yours.
Select the Tube tool and select the
sparkles_fine JH tube, or the sparkle tube you want to use.
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Layers menu, New Raster Layer
Reduce the scale of the tube to 70
With the tube tool, click on four or
five shiny spots on the text. (use more sparkles than I specify,
on this and all of the following layers, if you are making a larger area
sparkly)
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| Layers menu, New Raster Layer
Increase the scale of the tube to 80.
With the tube tool, click on four or
five different shiny spots on the text.
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| Layers menu, New Raster Layer
Reduce the scale of the tube back to 70
With the tube tool, click on four or
five shiny spots on the text. It doesn't matter if some are nearly in
the same place as those on the first layer, so long as some are in
different places to the previous two layers.
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| Layers menu, New Raster Layer
Increase the scale of the tube to 90
With the tube tool, click on five or six
shiny spots on the text. It doesn't matter if some are nearly in the
same place as those on the first three layers, so long as some are in
different places to the previous layers.
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Save in PSP 7 format :
Click File menu, Save As
Enter a new name for the image and
then click the arrow against the "Save File As Type" box
underneath the file name.
From the pull down list choose Paint
Shop Pro Image. Then click Options button - select
"Uncompressed" and "Save as PSP 7 compatible
file" Note: If you are using PSP 7 you don't need to select
this as an option.
File menu, Jasc Software Products,
Launch Animation Shop
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| In Jasc Animation Shop:
File menu, Preferences, General Program
Preferences
Click on the Layered Files tab.
Set the options shown here - "Each
frame shows first and current layers"
Click OK when you have settings matching
those shown here.
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| File menu, Open - look in the
folder where you save the file from Paint Shop Pro.
Files of type needs to be set to
"All Files" - this can be selected from the pull down list.
Locate your file (saved from PSP
earlier) and open it.
You should see your tag without any
sparkles on it - DON'T PANIC.
Drag the right side of the image window
further over to the right and you should start to see more frames of the
animation, with sparkles on.
Click on Frame number 1, and then click
the Edit menu and choose Delete.
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The selected frame has a Blue border
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| Click the View
menu and choose Animation to see a preview of your sparkles in
action. Close the preview window by clicking the X in the top
right corner.
If you want to change the speed of the
animation, click Edit menu, Select All, then Animation menu, Frame
Properties. The default setting is 10. 12 will make your
sparkles move a little slower and 8 will speed them up slightly.
After you've changed the setting, preview the animation as before to see
if you are happy with the speed. I used a setting of 11 for this
tag.
When you are happy with the speed, we
need to optimise it (set the image quality) and save.
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| If you already
have your optimisation settings done for a good quality image, then go
right ahead and save - but if not, run the Optimisation Wizard first....
File menu, Optimisation
Wizard.
Select the top option "Animated
Gif" and the bottom option "Create new animation......"
Click Next
Push the slider right to the top
"Better image quality"
Click the Customize button.
On the Colours tab:
Number of colours = 255
Create Pallet by = Optimized Octree
Reduce Colours by = Error Diffusion
Click OK
Click Next ... then wait a moment or two
while the blue lines fill go across the window (depends on speed of your
PC)
Click Next - you will see a preview of
the optimized file (on the right) with the original. There
should be not obvious difference between the two.
Click Next and then click Finish.
Now Save your finished animated tag in
.gif format. (File menu, Save)
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