JWG PSP7 Tutorials:
Glitter Name
Preparations
If you want to add a tube to your glitter name when it is finished, check out my combining animations tutorial here.
Before we start you will need a glitter gif. You can get some here.
I have also put all the glitters, fonts, and tubes used in my examples into this zip file,
if you would like to follow along with me.
Open Animation Shop, find your gif and open it:
Right click on frame 1 and click copy.
Open PSP, and right click in the workspace. Click on Paste As New Image.
Your first glitter frame will open.
Save it somewhere you can remember.
Go back to Ani Shop and click on frame 2 of your glitter gif.
Repeat the above steps with all frames of your glitters. If you do this every time you use a new glitter, and save them in a glitters folder making sure you name the psp images properly ie: blueglitter1, 2 and so on: when you want to make a new name, using the same glitter, you can open the psp glitters in PSP, without having to copy and save from Ani Shop.
Making your glittername
Leave your psp glitters open in PSP, and open a new transparent image 300x150. Click on the text tool and choose your text. This is what I used for the above example:
If you would like to use the same font (Louvaine), you can download it here.
I picked out a dark colour from the glitter using the eye dropper for my stroke colour, and used white as my fill, so that it wouldnt change the glitter. You could pick a lighter or contrasting colour for your stroke instead, if you wished. I like to contract my selection by the same amount as my line width (default line width is 1 so I would contract by 1). (Selections: Modify: Contract ---type number of pixels in the box) For a bolder outline, when you click on your text entry tool, set your line width to 2, and in the text entry box, set your stroke colour to black, and your fill colour to white. Click ok, and with your text selected, go to Selections:Modify:Contract by 2 pixels. When you have finished your name, it will then look more like this one:
*This font is called Fiolex Girls and you can download it here*
Make sure that Floating and Antialias are checked before you click OK. Now you will see your text in your image with "marching ants" all around it. You can move your text to the center by sliding your mouse over it until you see a green cross, left click and drag your text to where you want it. Now with your text still selected, go to Selections: Modify: Contract by 1. If you dont contract your text, the following method will NOT work and you will be unable to floodfill the layers
**Do NOT deselect your text until we have finished!!**
Now go to your Layer Palette: If it is not visible on your workspace, click on this icon to show it.
This is what you should see:
Right click on Layer 1 and click on Rename:
Rename this layer "glitter 1" and then press enter on your keyboard. Right click again on this glitter 1 layer and click on duplicate:
This is what you should have now:
Right click on Copy of glitter 1 and rename that glitter 2. Right click on glitter 1 and duplicate that again. Right click on the copy layer and rename that glitter 3. Continue duplicating the glitter 1 layer until you have as many layers as there are frames on your original glitter gif. In my example here, there are 4 frames, but it can be anything from 3 to 15 depending on the glitter you have chosen.
Click on each of the layers in turn apart from glitter1, and click on the little glasses to turn off visibility for that layer. (A red x appears over the glasses when the layer is hidden).
Keep glitter 1 as the active layer (the one highlighted in blue in the screenshot) and go to your patterns box and find your glitter 1 pattern
Floodfill the text on the glitter1 layer with your glitter1 pattern.
Now turn off glitter1 layer and click on your glitter2 layer to activate it.
Go back to your patterns box and find your glitter2 pattern. Floodfill the text on this glitter2 layer with the glitter2 pattern. Repeat this procedure for every layer you have, remembering to change the pattern each time, and only have the layer you are working on, visible. ~all other layers must be turned off~ If you want to add an inner bevel to your text (Effects: 3D Effects: Inner Bevel) or a small drop shadow, do so on each separate layer, after floodfilling with the glitter pattern.
When you have filled each text layer: *Turn visibility back on for all layers!!*
This is very important, because your graphic will not work properly if you save it with any layers hidden.
Now you can deselect (Selections: Select None) and save your image as it is, with all your separate layers, (Do NOT merge layers!) as a .psp file.
Please note that if you are using PSP 8 or 9, the default file extension for psp files is .pspimage. However, Animation Shop is unable to open this type of file as it considers it an "unsupported file type". Therefore you must ensure that your version of PSP allows you to save as .psp. I have taken a few screenshots in PSP 9 to show you how to check that this is so, and/or add the file extensions if necessary.
Making the Animation
Remember where you have saved it, and open Animation Shop. The first thing to do is to set some preferences.
Go to File: Preferences: General Program Preferences: and click on the Layered Files tab. Make sure these boxes are checked:
Now go to File :Open and browse for your psp file.
It should open as an animation, and you can go to View Animation to make sure it is ok:
If you want to change the time delay to make the glitter faster or slower, Ctrl+A to select all your frames, and then go to Animation: Frame Properties, and change the number in the Display Time box (lower for a faster animation and greater for slower) You can now go to the optimization wizard and save your graphic as a gif. I have managed to optimise theses examples quite hard and reduced the file size considerably.
Another Example
This was made with 5 layers of lilac glitter, stroke colour #A276F2 and fill colour white. I added a small drop shadow to each layer separately. Vertical 0 Horizontal 2 Opacity 70 Blur 3.7 and Shadow colour #6E44AC, to compliment the lilac glitter. I also used Unsharp Mask on each layer with these settings: Effects:Sharpen:Unsharp Mask: Radius 2.00 Strength 40 Clipping 5
The font used is chopin script and I added the butterfly tube (which I colorised to compliment the glitter first) in Animation Shop using the method described in my combining animations tutorial.
original glittername tutorial © saphire
design
modified and updated with permission.
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