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Adding
Sparkle Shapes
To
A Tag
You
can use any shape or dingbat for this effect
This
tutorial deals with creating the animation and not
the background.
This
tutorial is written for Jasc Animation Shop 3 and
Paint Shop Pro (any version)
To
complete this tutorial you will need to either
download one of my sparkle shapes from HERE
or make one of
your own using my tutorial Creating Sparkle
Shapes.
You
will also need a tag or photo to add the sparkle
shape to.
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| Start up both Paint Shop Pro
and Animation Shop
In Paint Shop Pro, open your tag or
photo. If you want to add any sort of
frame or border to the image then do it now.
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| If necessary, merge the layers
of your tag to a single layer.
Edit menu, Copy
(or use the copy button on the tool bar, or
ctrl C)
Switch to Animation Shop
Edit menu, Paste, As New Animation
(ctrl V)
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File menu, Open - open the .psp file of
the sparkle shape you want to add to the
tag.
With the sparkle shape file selected,
look at the bottom right corner of the
Animation Shop window, you should be able to
see the number of frames there.
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| Click on the window with the
tag in it. Animation menu, Insert Empty Frames -
| Number of Frames = |
One less than the
number of frames in the sparkle shape file. |
| Insert before frame = |
2 |
| Frame Delay Time = |
12 |
| Select |
"Carry forward contents of
preceding frame" |
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| Edit menu, Select
All
Click on the Sparkle Shape window
Edit menu, Select All
Drag (holding the mouse button down) from
the first frame of the sparkle shape
animation to the first frame of the tag.
The contents of all the other sparkle
shape frames should be copied to each
corresponding frame of the tag.
You
can check your results by previewing the
animation (View menu, Animation).
Close the preview window when you have
finished viewing your animation.
If
you are not happy with the position of the
sparkle shape, you can try again, but you
need to "Undo" on both windows
first (click the undo button with the tag
window selected and then click the title bar
of the sparkle shape window and click the
Undo button again).
If
your animation is too fast, you can change
the amount of time each frame is shown as
follows:-
Edit
menu, Select All
Animation menu, Frame Properties
Adjust the number to a value between 10
and 20. The higher the number the
slower the animation will be.
Don't
forget to close the preview window when
you have viewed the animation again.
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| When
you are happy with your animation Close the
Sparkle Shape Window - DO NOT Save the
changes.
Before
Saving the tag with the sparkle shape on it,
it's best to Optimize it.
File
menu, Optimization Wizard
On
the first window,
Optimize
For = Animated GIF File
When
Finished = Replace the current animation
with the optimized version.
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| Click
Next
Set
the Slider to the top (Best Quality) and
click the Customize button.
On
the Colours Tab:
Number
of Colours = 255
Create Pallet By = Optimized Octree
Reduce Colours By = Error Diffusion
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| Click
the Optimizations Tab
Tick
the 1st, 3rd and 4th boxes. Make sure
the 2nd and bottom boxes are NOT ticked.
Click
OK
Tick
the box "Use these settings when saving
unoptimized files"
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 |
| Click
Next (the image will be processed)
Click
Next (See a preview of the animation)
Click
Next (see the file size and download times)
Click
Finish
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| There
may be some loss of image quality, but from
experience these seem to be the settings
that achieve the best results.
Now,
save your tag |
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