Supplies:
Paintshop Pro (I use V9)
Animation Shop
Tube of choice, a close up works best, mine is by Ismael Rac and used with a license
A Scrap Kit, mine is by KittzKreationz and it's a freebie called Halloween Jinx.
Font(s) of choice, mine is 2Peas My Muse
Filters AAAFrames/ Foto Frame
Mask 62InsatiableDreams by Cat from InsatiableDreams, go to the Resources Page/Masks/Masks4.
A Script by SuzShook, I used Fun Blinkie Tag #11.
Suz has tons more brilliant scripts on her site, you just need to follow her instructions closely and you should not have a problem using her other blinkiescripts and stuff. ;o)

Open up the tube in PSP, the kit in Windows Explorer and unzip the script. Open it up, move the scriptfile (page with a gear icon) into MyPSPFiles/Scripts-Restricted.
Drag the Blinkie Template of your choice into PSP, I used 11a. Double click the index file in the Blinkie folder and have a quick read. Don't worry, I shall also explain what to do though.

Ok, let's start. If you're also making a forum set for thezonegroups, open up a new canvas 600x250, or whatever size you fancy for your tag. Take your rectangle tool set to fill c0c0c0, stroke none and create a small rectangle 200x125, this is the same size as your blinkie will be. To see how big the rectangle is look for this set of numbers at the bottom of the screen. (If you don't see this, you need to activate your status toolbar. Go to View/ Toolbars for that.)

Convert to raster layer, set the opacity to 60 and rename 'holder'. Leave this as your uppermost layer the whole time. It acts as a placeholder for your blinkie, that you will later add in AS. Just so you have space for it allocated and your tag looks it's best. I placed mine in the bottom right hand corner.

Minimize the blinkie temp for now and create your tag. I used the kit, pasted one paper and another on top. Applied Cats Mask and merged group. Dropshadow. Add all the elements that you like and that will fit, add a dropshadow to all elements. You may also want to add your tube already. I set the blend mode of mine to Screen.
Hide the Holder layer and merge visible. Crop merged opaque. Apply the Foto Frame filter, I set mine to width 7. Make a duplicate for the Avatar if you're making a set. For that set the crop tool to 150x150 and move that square until you see a cut out you like and crop. Delete the holder layer. Apply the Foto Frame filter. Add your credits legibly to both. You may want to add your name to this part of the tag as there is not much space on the blinkie.
Minimize those two for now and open the blinkie template again.

You will see it has 4 layers.You will need to keep those 4 layers in the same order for the script to work!
1. Select a background image from the kit or create your own with a floodfill. If you use an image- paste it above the bg layer and delete the bg layer. Rename your new background 'bg'. If you use a floodfill- just fill the bg layer. I did not use anything at all as a background, I wanted mine transparent. The script will greyscale the background.

2. Activate the image layer and delete it. In it's place you paste the close up. Move and resize until it sits nicely underneath the blinkie shapes. Rename this layer 'image'. Crop merged opaque. Dropshadow.

3. You can either leave it like this and add your name somewhere else on the tag or write your name onto the blinkie. The important thing is to create and leave it as vector. If you choose to add your name here, delete the text layer and rename your own vector layer 'text'.
Do nothing to the blinkie layer.
I added my name to the final tag in AS. But we'll come to that later...

Ok, so you have bg, image, text and blinkie reading from the bottom up.
You now need to run the script, for this you may need to make the script toolbar visible. Go to View/toolbars and make script active. In the toolbar find ss-FunBlinkie11-01. Press play next to it. A window will pop open, follow the instructions. And then press play again, and reply yes. You will now see loads happening on your blinkie and in the layer palette, just let it run. Close the script output when it is done.

Now you have a blinkie with 36 layers. Save it under a NEW name where you usually save your tags or templates to. As a pspimage.
Open your finished tag, delete the holder layer and copy/ paste it as a New Animation into AS.
Duplicate until you have 36 frames. Edit/Select All.
File/Open and find your saved blinkie. Edit/ Select All. Copy and paste into selected frame roughly where your holder was before.
Back in psp I used the tag for placement and size to write out my name, convert to raster layer, dropshadow and copy just the name layer. Paste as a New Animation in AS, duplicate until you have 36 frames and also with all frames selected copy and paste into the tag as you did the blinkie. Now activate frame no.1 and go to Animation/Frame Properties and set it to 175. Save as a gif.
Go back to PSP and add your name to the avatar with the same settings, save as a jpg.

Here's a few more examples.

This tutorial was created 14th October 2010, and is the sole property of ooh...babelicious. Similarity to other tutorials is purely coincidental. Do not copy this or any of my tutorials, or any part of my tutorials, to another site unless you have express permission from me to do so. If you want to share, send the URL, do not direct link or offer on your site. Give credit where credit is due. Do not script this tutorial and offer to others.

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