Hi there, thought I'd write a tutorial on a couple of ways you can make blinkies. I'm assuming you know your PSP 9 beyond the "OH MY GOSH, look at all those buttons phase!!"  :)

You can see above what the blinkies will look like when finished.

I've included the two blank blinkie templets *You can make your own or find them on the net* and the two tubes used in the zip file provided. Of course you can use whatever tube you'd like.

Your supplies zip HERE.

Drag and drop this arrow to keep up with where you are in the tutorial

Open your first blinkie templet like the one below and go to LAYERS/MERGE/ MERGE ALL/flatten. It should have white background now.

Select your MAGIC WAND tool and click INSIDE selecting every square and rectangle. Make sure your selection tool is set on the selection tool MODE of ADD (shift). Now on the layer palette right click on that layer and duplicate. So that you now have two layers. See sample below.

On your materials palette choose the two colors your wanting to use.

OK highlight the first layer on the layer palette and fill with your two colors.. In the sample below I used black and red.

If you notice I use the two colors in alternating pattern. You can use as many colors as you'd like.. or even gradients... the combination is as limited as your imagination is. SOO skys the LIMIT!!

Here is an option you can do or NOT... I clicked on my selection tool and inside the middle of the blinkie as shown, draw a rectangle.

Go to Selections/INVERT then apply a drop shadow using these settings below. Do it to both blinkie layers *on palette*

Open the tube you want to use and resize if needed to fit correctly on the blinkie...As you can tell it needs to be small. Keep the selection going do NOT unselect. Remembering its still on INVERT

Copy and paste the tube on a new layer. Position your tube where you want it on the blinkie.

Duplicate the new tube layer and drag  each tube on top of a blinkie layer... So from top to bottom you have tube, blinkie, tube & blinkie *layers* Your layer palette should look like this.

With the Blinkie still selected, highlight the each of the tube layers in turn and hit DELETE. This will cut off the area that extends out of the rectangle as shown in the sample below.

Apply a 3D drop shadow on the tube layer. I used the settings below.

Merge/Merge Down  each of the tube and blinkie layers ending up with 2 layers. On the layer palette highlight the top layer and go to EDIT/Copy and then open your ANIMATION SHOP and right click on the workspace and PASTE as new animation

Back in PSP highlight the second or bottom layer on the palette and go to EDIT/COPY and then back to ANIMATION SHOP and right click on the animation you just pasted or created and go to PASTE/After Current Frame

This makes a 2 framed animation as below. Now your in Animation shop... go to EDIT/SELECT ALL and right click on either 'frame' and go to animation properties and change the speed of the animation to 20. Click OK

You done now.. SAVE AS a .gif and its over  lol.. whewwww

 OK on to the next type of Blinkie... you start out the same as the other one.. Open your blinkie templet and go to Layers Merge/ Merge All Flatten . With your magic wand again select by clicking on the insides of all the squares.

Now on the layer palette you select this layer *only one there* and DUPLICATE it. Start with the top duplicated blinkie layer and put a color in every other square. Start with the first one as shown.

Ok lets put color on the second blinkie layer. HIDE the top one by clicking the EYE on the layer palette.

Then you can see the second layer, be sure to select it on the layer palette or you'll be putting color on the wrong layer. Start with the SECOND square and put the 2nd color on every other square. See below sample.

As in the previous blinkie use your selection tool and draw a rectangle out in the center of this blinkie, as sample below. Go to Selections/ Invert

Same as before  copy and paste the tube on new layer  ..Refer to previous blinkie instructions. Put a 3D shadow on the tube layer if you need to. Highlight the top tube layer and CUT or DELETE... this gets rid of the extra parts of the tube outside of the selected rectangle. See Below

Duplicate the tube layer and drag one down on top of your bottom blinkie layer.

All that's left is doing as in the other sample.. you copy and paste into animation shop... REFER to if it needed. Don't worry  one of these days.. all this will come automatic and you wont have to refer back...You'll just KNOW how ...woo hoo!!!  *S*

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial

Toodles till next time1!