This tutorial is dedicated to my true love, Jimmy. He is in nursing school and I am sooo very proud of him. He has recently won a scholarship! We are both very proud of his accomplishments thus far. Ain't easy going back to school 14 years after high school graduation. ;-) Note that this tutorial isn't for the tag above. It is written for the animation of the ekg below. What you do with the knowledge obtained from making the animation is only limited by your imagination.

This tutorial assumes you are familiar with your version of PSP and know where your tools are located. Workspaces can differ, therefore the screenshots and directions for the location of the tools used may not be accurate in your workspace. If you have problems finding a particular tool, use the program's help file and type the tool name into the "find" window.

Before we get started with this tutorial, let me point out that this is my very first animation tutorial written. I love doing animations, but I have a hard time walking thru the steps in tutorial format. Please keep this in mind when doing this tutorial. Also, if you are a PSP beginner, I don't recommend this tut, due to my lack of experience in writing this type of tutorial. It will be very helpful if you know your version of PSP and where your tools are located.

Be sure to read my TOU before working this tutorial.

Supplies Needed:

Paint Shop Pro & Animation Shop.

1. Begin by creating a new image with these settings:

2. Go to View>Change grid, guide & snap properties. Set your grid as below:

2. Go to View>Grid to turn on your grid. Go to View>Snap to grid to turn on the snap. Once again, if your rulers aren't on, go to View>Rulers. Now we're set up to go. :)

3. Grab your pen tool. Set your foreground color to #00ff00. (Neon Green) and your background color to Null (nothing).Your pen tool options need to be set like so:

Notice the Join. If it isn't set like above, you won't get nice pointed tips.

4. Begin your line segments at the 200px mark (zoom in if need be) on the left with make a small horizontal line, then make verticle lines similar to what is seen on an ekg like so:

Notice that I ended around the 140px ruler mark (top ruler) and with a small verticle line on the 200px mark where I began. Take another look at the screenshot to see what I mean. 140 is just a general guide, just be sure to not go past 200 on top ruler. But the 200 mark on left ruler begin and end is essential for future steps.

5. Right click on Vector 1 layer in the layer palette and convert to raster.

6. Right click on the Raster 1 layer in the layer palette and choose duplicate.

7. Go to Image>Mirror.

8. Grab your mover tool and move the mirrored image to join the piece on the left. If you turned on your Snap to Grid, this is very simple to line up.

9. Hide the black background layer.

10. Right click on Raster 1 layer in the layer palette and choose Merge>Merge Visible.

11. Go to View>Grid to turn off the grid view.

12. Grab your crop tool and click on "layer opaque" icon:

Double click inside the area to crop.

13. Right click on the black background layer in the layer palette and choose Delete.

***TIP ALERT*** Before doing a final save, you can go to Image ->Image Information and click on the "Creator Information" tab. In the description field, add the tutorial url (and other info, such as font used). Then save as a psp file. That information is saved along with the image. The next time you say (to yourself, of course...) "I wish I could remember where that tut is, you will have the information available in the image itself. Cool, huh?

14. Save your image as v7 compatible psp file:

NOW!! Let's animate it! ;)

15. Open your saved image in Animation Shop.

16. Go to Effects>Insert Image Transition.

17. Choose the wipe effect, click customize and use these settings:

Click ok. You will see that you now have a 23 frame animation. But, if you view this animation you will see there is a major problem with it. Let's get that fixed.

18. Right click on Frame 1 and choose 'copy'.

19. Right click on Frame 1 again and choose 'Animation Properties'. Set your Canvas Color to 'Opaque' and color = black. (For easier veiwing in what we're doing next.) Click 'OK'.

20. Activate Frame 2 by clicking on it once. You may have to put your animation window in the center of your screen so that you have room to the left to work. You will see what I mean. With frame 2 active, hold down the Ctrl key and press 'e' key. This temporarily 'glues' your first frame to the end of your cursor until you click in the frame. Move your mouse so that you line up the copy that you are about to stamp on - to the left of your image. See shot below to see what I mean.

21. If you don't get it lined up exactly, click the UNDO button and repeat the Ctrl + E. Stamp again, LOL.

22. Repeat the Ctrl + E process for every frame to the end. Remember that you have to activate each frame by clicking in it once, then do the Ctrl + E on each.

23. Now...got to View>Animation. You should see that your animation is now fixed. You can now right click on any frame and set the Canvas Color back to Transparent if you like. You can now use your animation to make a siggy tag if ya like.

Here is a tag made for me by Nathy. What a great tag!! Thanks Nathy for making it and for letting me show it off here. ;)

Hope you enjoyed it :)