Cat Blinking Tutorial
by Kathie Cureington

I have had several people asking me how
I make the antimated eyes. I decided to
write a tutorial fot this one.
 

Open PSP
File/ Open/ Choose a graphic with at
least one eye showing plainly.

WE need to put a frame or boder on now.
I choose just a simple border for this  one.
I used the color picker and choose a color
from the bow.
Be sure your color is in the bottem color box
(circled in green) and with Symmetric checked
I choose size 10 border.

I didn't do anything to my border, but at this
point you could add a bevel, blade pro preset,
eye candy or just any favorite border you like.

Make 2 copies of you image, using Shift-D keys
I like to line my images up to work on them.

The first image you will make NO changes to
Save as a Jpeg-named Cat 1
I have a folder named work
and I make a sub folder in there for each animation project.

Select the the second image,the title bar will be hilighted.
Choose the Smudge tool. It is the little hand.
I use these settings.

 

Start at the top of the eye and lightly pull down with your smudge tool,
You will make the eye look half way closed.
Save as a jpeg named Cat 2
 

Select the third cat picture

You will use the Smudge tool again with the
same settings and pull the white down until the
eye looks closed. You can always back up with
Edit/Undo if you don't like the shape and rework it.

Save as a Jpeg-named Cat 3
 

Now for the FUN part!!

Go to file/ Run Animation Shop
When the program comes up
You will use the Wizard--click on this little button
on the top left corner...

 

This box will come up...........
Click the top button,same as the first image.
Click Next

You will have these choices--choose transparent
click next
 

You will get this box.
You want to center the frame
and
with the canvas color on the second choice
Click next
 

You will get the following box
Click to repeat animation indefently
put 20 in the next box.
Click Next

You will get a box to select your 3 cat files you just saved
When you click Add Images--you will get the second box up.
Got to the folder you saved the three cats in

Click on cat1/Click on open. It will show up in the Add Images box.
Click Add images again/Click on Cat 1. again  Click open again.
You will have 2 cat1's
Click on Add image/Click on cat2/open.
Do that again to get a second cat 2
Do the same thing for your cat3 image.
You now have 2 copies of each graphic in your box.
Click next

You will get a box saying the wizard is ready to finish your animation
Click Finish

Your antimation will pop up in frames.
To see how it looks go to the top right on the toolbar
and click the little film square.
(You can also go to view/ antimations on the top bar)

Your animation will come up and preview.
If it looks like you want it to you can now save it.
If you do not like it close out animation shop and you can rework
your graphics in PSP and try them again.
Go to File/ Save as/
It will automatically save it as a .gif file
Be sure to choose a name for it.
I have a folder just for my finished animations.
Click Save

You will have a box come up with a Slider on the left
and on the right saying better image quality.
Change nothing and click Next

You will get a box saying
wait for optimising.
When the little squares stop filling the lines click next.

It will show you the optimising results.
Click finish and it will be saved.
 

Just to show you another example of an
animal winking. You can also do
this with people.
HAVE FUN!!!

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