printanimermaid

Animated Mermaid.

For this tutorial, you will need:

PSP 7

The mermaid tube I used from Outlaw By Design * Note, the mermaid I used isn't available anymore but there are 2 mermaids with different coloured tails, please feel free to use one of them.

One of the following tiles, depending on which mermaid you download.....right click and save to your hard drive

This is a simple tutorial to show you how to animate images. I've used a lot of screenshots in this tutorial so please be patient while the page loads :o)

1) Open your tube in PSP. Press Shift and D to make a copy and close the original.

2) If you've used the same tube as me, you need to resize it. Go to Image > Resize and use the following settings

3) You will now have this

4) Go to your layer palette, right click on the layer and click on duplicate.

5) Make sure your duplicated layer is the active layer (this means the layer you want to work on is selected)

6) Click on the Lasso tool and use the following settings.

7) Make a selection round the mermaids tail. Don't worry about being accurate at this stage.

8) When you've gone all the way round, double click to make the selection then click once in the middle of the selection to tighten the ants. This is the reason you don't have to be accurate!

9) Click on the copy icon. This copies the selected area onto the clipboard.

10) Now click on the New Image icon and use the following settings

I always make my canvas big so I have plenty of room to work with.

11) Making sure the new canvas is the active canvas, go to Edit > Paste > Paste as new layer or you can click on the new layer icon if you have it on your toolbars.

This is what you will have.

12) Go to Image > Rotate

13) Use the following settings

14) This is what you will have

15) Turn off the visibility of Layer 0

16) Press the delete key on your keyboard and your mermaids tail will disappear...don't worry, we want it to lol

17) Click on the canvas that has your mermaids tail and click on the copy icon. Now click back on your mermaid and go to Edit > Paste > As New Layer. Use the mover tool to position the mermaids tail back on her body.

18) We now have to get rid of the gap we've got, to do this, we're going to use the clone tool with the following options

19) Right click on an area you want to copy (see the red x on the screenshot)

now left click in the gap and the clone tool will 'paint' in the colours.

Continue 'painting' until it's all filled in.

20) This is what you'll have now.

21) We've now got 3 layers....the bottom layer is the original mermaid, the middle layer is the mermaid with her tail chopped off! and the top layer is her rotated tail. Turn off the visibility of the bottom layer

22) Right click on the middle layer and go to Merge > Merge Visible

23) Here's what your layer palette should now look like

and here's how your mermaid looks with both layers visible

Time to add your text.

24) Open the patterned tile you saved from page one. Click on the little arrow on the fill box and choose pattern when the little window opens. Load the green pattern tile. Choose solid colour in the stroke box and use a dark green. I used #1A4B07

25) Click on the text tool and click on your mermaid canvas. Type in your name and choose your font. Set your size to 72 and make sure anti alias and vector are selected. Click OK.

26) Use the nodes on the vector box to stretch your text so it fits under the mermaid.

27) Right click on the new vector layer and click on convert to raster Layer

28) Click on the Inner Bevel Icon and use the following settings.

29) Click on the text layer and drag it down under the mermaid layers

30) This is what you should have now.

31) Now go back to the layer palette and right click on the text layer. Click on Duplicate

32) We now need to merge a text layer with a mermaid layer. Turn OFF the visibility of copy of layer 2 and merged.

33) Right click on layer layer 2 and Merge > Merge visible.

34) Turn OFF the visibility of the newly merged layer and turn the other 2 layers back on. Right click on copy of layer 2 and Merge > Merge Visible

35) turn on the visibility of the first merged layer and this is how your layer palette should look now.

36) Save your image as a PSP file.

Last page! lol Let's animate :o)

37) Open Animation Shop and open your mermaid PSP file. if you can't see both frames and you'd like to, put your mouse over the edge of the canvas and when it turns into a double headed arrow, drag it out until you can see both frames.

38) Go to Edit > Select all then Animation > Frame Properties and use the following settings.

39) Click on the Play Animation icon and make sure you're happy with the speed. If you're not, you can change it!

40) OK, nearly done! All that's left is to crop away the excess canvas. Click on the crop tool

3 buttons will appear. Click on the Options buttons

A new window will open. Click on surround opaque area then click OK.

Click on the crop button.

41) Save and you're done :o)