Animation Shop & PSP Merging

HOOTEYE February 2010

Sometimes it is easier to Animate your PSP work, by merging your
layers, and saving them as separate images, this Tutorial will take
you through step by step, on how to animate using this method

There are probably many Tutorials on how to animate your PSP work
using Jasc Animation Shop, this is simply my version of how to do it.

This Tutorial was wrote for animating work created with
PSP X, but holds good for PSP 8, PSP 9, and higher

To demonstrate the various steps outlined in this Tutorial,
we will be working through my Reflections PSP file

The Reflections Tutorial for this can be found here

OK HERE GOES.

( REMEMBER TO SAVE REGULARLY)

PSP PART

STEP (1)

Download the Reflections PSP file from here

STEP (2)

With your version of PSP open up the downloaded Reflections file

Your Document and Layer Palette should look like this

STEP (3)

Go to your Layer Palette and arrange it like this

Right click on the Orb Top Layer, when this menu appears click "Merge All (Flatten)"

Your Layer Palette will now look like this

On the overhead bar click File, in its drop-down menu, click, Save Copy As

when the below pop-up box appears, scroll its drop-down menu, and select PSP Animation Shop (psp)
name the file Frame 1, on the overhead drop-down menu, select "My Pictures" and then click save

On the overhead bar click Edit, in its drop-down menu, click, Undo Merge All

Your Layer Palette has gone back to looking like this

STEP (4)

Following these Layer Palette arrangements, carry out Merge/Save/Undo Merge All,
to create the other 5 PSP Animation Shop (psp) Frames, name them Frame 2,3,4,5,6.

You should now have the 6 PSP Animation Shop (psp) files saved to "My Pictures" and showing like this

As the rest of this Tutorial will now be referring to Animation Shop, you can close down your PSP program.

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ANIMATION SHOP PART

STEP (5)

Open your Animation Shop program

On the overhead bar, click File, in its drop-down menu, click, Animation Wizard

This Pop-up box will appear, check the setting are the same, and click Next

This Pop-up will appear, check the settings are the same, and Click Next

This Pop-up will appear, tick yes and set the frame display
time to 1, (suitable for this animation) and Click Next

This Pop-up will appear, click the "Add Image" Button

When this Pop-up appears go to "My Pictures", then on your Keyboard,
hold down the ctrl Key, and in-turn select the 6 Frame files, and click Open
Note:- Frames 4,5,6, not showing in this screen shot

You will now have this Pop-up appearing, showing your 6 frame files
you have the option to re-arrange the 6 frames by using the "Move up"
and "Move Down" buttons (not necessary for this animation Click Next

This Pop-up will now appear, click Finish

Your 6 frames will now appear like this
Note:- Screen shot reduced for demonstration purposes

Go to the overhead bar, and click the View Animation Icon

This should be your result

Note:- the animation will be running much faster
in Animation Shop then shown in this gif example

STEP (6)

Go to the overhead bar, and click File, in its drop-down menu, click, Save As

This Pop-up will appear, name your file, and click save,
(I have named it Animated Orb) save it to My Pictures

This Pop-Up will now appear "Animation Quality Versus Output Size"
drag the slider to the very top, (suitable for this Animation) click Next

This Pop-Up will now appear, just Click Next

This Pop-Up will now appear, again just Click Next

This Pop-Up will now appear, "Optimization Results" Click Finish

STEP (7)

That's it we are done, go to My Pictures and click on
the saved Gif File your result should be similar to this