JWG PSP7 Tutorials:
JWG Blinkies
Now even easier, AND in a variety of sizes!
This tutorial will show you how to make blinkies like these:
A long time ago now, when the blinkie craze started, I looked around for an easy blinkie tutorial, but found many of them to be too complicated for me to follow.....
I discussed this with Pedro, and so he made some selections for me to do my own.
Now Pedro has made a new set of templates in a variety of sizes, and with different width dots on the selections, as shown in the examples above.
They are all offered here for download, with the selections already preloaded into the alpha channel, so that you can make even easier blinkies too :-)
We would prefer it if you didn't pass these templates on to others through groups, email etc, but please feel free to direct your friends here, to get them for themselves :-)
About the Templates
You will need my new blinkie templates zip file.
This contains a folder named jwgblinkie_templates, inside which you will find 4 more folders labelled with the size of dots on the selections. Each of those folders contains several .psp templates in various sizes, and all templates have the selections stored in the alpha channel, inside the file itself. There is no reason at all why the templates should not function as advertised, now that the selections are part of the image and dont have to be downloaded separately. If however, you do have problems with the templates; Please do NOT email me saying "they dont work!" because sadly, I am not in a position to do anything about it. The templates have been tried and tested on a number of machines with several testers, and they all work perfectly. DO read the instructions again. Have you followed them exactly as written? Download and unzip the templates file again, just in case the download was corrupted. If it STILL doesnt work, I am sorry, but the problem must be on your computer, over which I have no control. :-(
Getting Started
Unzip the templates folder to anywhere that is convenient for you, and that you will remember easily. Somewhere in "My Pictures" may be suitable, but it really doesn't matter where they are, as long as you know where to find them!
Screenshots
I have taken a lot of screenshots to enable this tutorial to be completed by beginners, and they can now be accessed by clicking on the individual links, or tabbing through the shots in the screenshots gallery. If you are more experienced, and dont need the screenshots, you can just ignore them and move on quickly!
Making a Blinkie
First of all, decide which size blinkie you would like to make. The screenshots are for the jwgblinkie_150x21alphamedium.psp template, but the instructions are the same for all sizes, with the sole exception of the largest one (the JWG sample above). This is located in the double_width_dots folder, and the only difference is that when you contract the selection on this one, you contract by 4 pixels, and not 3 as with all the others.
Go to File:Open and browse to where you have saved the jwgblinkies_templates folder. Open the jwgblinkie.psp file that you are going to use. Each one has the size in it's name for easier reference.
Duplicate it, (using Shift+D) and close the original for future use.
You can use these templates every time you make blinkies now, but always remember to duplicate them first, and close the originals!
It is a good idea to only have one blinkie template open at a time in PSP, when you are making these blinkies. This is because when you go to the alpha channel to load your selections, all the selections for all the blinkies you have open will be listed, and it can be quite confusing (to say the least!) to decide which one to pick.
Open your Layer Palette. If it is not visible, go to the toolbar and click on "Toggle Layer Palette":
You will see the following layers already on your blinkie:
Click on border, and floodfill this layer with the colour, gradient or pattern you want to use for your border. It will fill the whole image, but dont worry about that for the moment.
Then click on background, and go to Selections: Select All: and then Selections: Modify: Contract:
Contract your selection by 3 pixels:
Floodfill the selection with the colour, gradient, or pattern that you want to use for your background. Selections: Select None: Now click on the text layer and add your text in the usual way. If you want to add a small tube to your blinkie, add another layer and do that now. When you are happy with your colours etc, merge all visible layers. Layers: Merge: Merge Visible:
Right click on this merged layer, and rename it blinkie1:
Then right click on this layer again and duplicate it:
Right click on the Copy of blinkie1 layer, and rename it blinkie2:
Right click on blinkie1 layer and duplicate it again: Rename this copy, blinkie3:
Now hide blinkie2 and blinkie3 layers (click on the glasses and a red X appears) and make sure your blinkie1 layer is the active layer:
(The layer highlighted in dark blue is the active layer).
**You must make sure that the layer you are working on is the active layer, or you wont be able to floodfill the selections. If this seems to be happening to you, double check that the visible layer is the active one, and not one of the hidden layers by mistake! **
Go to Selections: Load from Alpha Channel.....
The blinkie template you are working on should be highlighted in the available documents dropdown box. If not, click on the drop down and highlight it, (this wont be a problem if you only have this file open, as mentioned above). Available alpha channels below should have blinkieselection1, blinkieselection2, and blinkieselection3, with blinkieselection1 highlighted for you. Click OK and blinkieselection1 will be loaded for you.
At this point you will need to zoom in to your blinkie, so you can see what you are doing: Go to View and click on Zoom In By 5:
You can then see the selection on the border:
Make sure your Flood Fill Tool is on these settings for PSP7:
and on these settings for PSP8 and 9:
Floodfill this selection with a light colour, gradient or fill of your choice. (If you click on one of the selected dots with your floodfill tool, it will fill all of them).
Selections:Select None:
Now hide this blinkie1 layer, and unhide the blinkie2 layer. (Click on the red X to unhide the layer).
Go to Selections: Load from Alpha Channel....and this time click on blinkieselection2 and OK.
Floodfill this selection with the same fill as you used for the blinkie1 layer. Selections:Select None:
Now hide this blinkie2 layer and unhide the blinkie3 layer.
Go to Selections: Load from Alpha Channel....and this time click on blinkieselection3 and OK.
Floodfill this selection with the same fill as the blinkie1 and blinkie2 layers. Selections:Select None:
You can now go back to Normal Viewing:
Unhide all your layers by clicking on all the red Xs.
*It is very important that all your layers are visible before saving, otherwise the blinkie wont animate!*
Now save as a .psp file, somewhere you will remember. Leave PSP and your blinkie file open for the moment.
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 it blink!
Open Animation Shop, click on File: Preferences: General Program Preferences: and click on the Layered Files Tab:
Make sure these boxes are checked and ticked: Export Frames to Paint Shop Pro as layered images: Keep layers as separate frames: Preserve overall layer transparency: Click OK. (You may need to alter these settings occasionally for other tutorials, but do remember to change them back when you have finished the other tut!)
Now go to File: Open, and browse to where you saved your blinkie psp file.
Open your blinkie file, and click on View Animation to make sure it animates ok:
Hopefully your blinkie will look something like this:
Now you can go to the Optimization Wizard and save your blinkie, using the settings here. Generally blinkies can be optimized at the lowest part of the slider without losing quality, and it does keep the file size nice and small :-)
You can now close both PSP and Animation Shop, unless of course you are going to go back and make some more blinkies........
My method of assembling these small blinkies was inspired by: Suz Shook's simple big blinkies. Dont forget to go and make some of her lovely big blinkies too!
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