Welcome to my Blinkie Tutorial!!

I’ve created this blinkie tutorial to help others get their creative talents flowing! This tutorial is for PSP (I used version 7.04) and Animation Shop.

I hope that I’ve done the best I can to make this ultra simple and easy to follow..... are ya ready?????? Let’s get going!;)

1)	Create a new image. Dimensions of 150X20 Pixels 72 dpi resolution Transparent background 24 bit color (16.7 million colors)
2)	Go to VIEW Choose Grid
3)	Now, let’s change the Grid and Guide Properties. The main areas we are concerned with here are Horizontal and Vertical Line Spacing and Line Color. Set your Horizontal and Vertical Line Space to 1 pixel and your Line Color to black.
4)	Zoom in on your graphic to 8:1	(Zoom tool)
5)	Next choose Flood Fill and choose what color you want your blinkie to be. For this tutorial let’s choose #FDD875	(Flood fill tool)
6)	Next.... choose your Selection tool. Make sure that the anti-alias box is UNCHECKED.	(Selection tool)
7)	Create a selection box 1 pixel indented in as shown in example
8)	Next, invert that selection and floodfill it with #1329FF
9)	Now,..... let’s add some text to our blinkie. Using your text tool let’s add “Blinkie Creatin’ Fool!!” Font-Arial Size-8 Color-white Standard text Make sure anti-aliased is UNCHECKED and I prefer to use the “floating” feature.	(text tool)
10)	Center the text as best as possible. It helps to use the Overview Window for this task.
11)	Now let’s make sure everything is unselected by holding ctrl and pressing D. (Now is also a good time to save what you have done so far. For the tutorial name it “blinkietutorial.psp”) Make sure it is saved in a .psp format......not .jpg or .gif.
12)	Now we need to duplicate this layer. So open up your layer palette and duplicate the layer and then click on properties and name it 2.
13)	We need to make the #2 layer hidden. So on the layer palette click on the glasses for that layer to where there is a red X through them. Now make sure that layer #1 is chosen and let’s get back to work on our image!;)
14)	Now choose the paint brush tool. Set the size to 2. Let’s choose the color #21FF31 to be our other color of blinking light.	(paint brush tool)
15)	Fill every other pixel with the color. Your graphic should be starting to look like this. SAVE again.
16)	Now... go back to the layer palette and unhide layer 2 and hide layer 1. Make Sure you select layer 2 to work on.
17)	Alternate your filled pixel colors (start one over from where you started on layer 1)
18)	After you have finished with the layer #2, unhide BOTH layers and save the image.
19)	Now, open up Animation Shop. And click on the Animation Wizard Button. In the wizard – * First screen, click next. * Second screen, click next. * Third screen, click next. * Fourth screen, you may either click next or play around with these settings. Always let it repeat indefinitely or else your blinkie will blink for a while and then stop. * Fifth screen, open up your “blinkietutorial.psp” and click next. * Sixth screen, click finish.	(Animation Wizard)
20)	You will now see your two layers in seperate boxes and can now save your blinkie in animation form. For tutorial purposes, save it as “blinkietutorial.gif”. When it comes up to the optimization box, make sure that it has at least 15 colors choosen for your optimized image. If it does not, click on Customize and change the output colors to 15. You can also see what your blinkie looks like by pressing the “view animation” button.	(view animation)

Now...... You’ve done it! You’ve created your first blinkie and on your way to customizing it to your own liking!!! Experiment by making the alternating pixels 2 pixels wide instead of one or even 3 pixels wide. It’s all up to you! Now that you have the basics you can change it to best suit your needs.