Hot Like Summer

This is what we will be making

You will need:

PSP - I used X3, but I'm sure any version will do the job

Animation Shop

I used the gorgeous art of Jessica Dougherty

Do not use her art without a proper license from CILM

Photo Tools-Frosted Edger-Color

Xero-Porcelain (Optional)

VM Toolbox-Radial Mosaic

MuRa Meister-Copies

Ready?

New Image-600x250

Choose two contrasting colors from your tube

Make a foreground-background gradient on the foreground-Angle 45, repeats 1

Fill with your gradient- Distortion Effects -Pixellate-10 symmetric checked

Edge effects-Enhance

Art Media Effects-Brush Strokes

The color will be the darker of your two colors

Edge effects-Enhance

Duplicate Layer- VM Toolbox-Radial Mosaic

Adjust-Blur-Radial Blur-Default settings

Blend mode to Overlay- Lower the opacity a little-Merge Visible

Resize your tube to 250 px height-copy and paste in your tag

MuRa Copies-Wallpaper Rotate-Default settings

Adjust-Blur-Gaussian Blur- 10

Blend mode to soft light

Now is the time to grab what we need for our avatar

On the bottom layer of your tag-the one with NO art

Copy and paste as a new image

Rectangular Selection Tool -Select the area you want for your avi and crop to selection

Set this aside for later

Ok- Back to our tag - Merge Visible

Photo Effex- Fiddle with the sliders til you get an edge color you like

Paste your tube and move it over to the left- Xero Porcelain-Default except turn off the Blue Channel

Drop Shadow

New Layer

Fill with dark color matching your tube

Select all-Modify-Contract 1-DELETE -Deselect

Using a thick Font, type the word SUMMER- Rasterize

Drop Shadow 5, 5, 38, 5

Move to the lower right side

Choose a different font and type Hot Like -Rasterize

Drop Shadow 5, 5, 38, 5

Move to just above SUMMER

Choose another font, a scripty one and type your name-Rasterize

Drop Shadow 5, 5, 38, 5

Move to right corner

See the sample tag above for placement of the text layers

Add your Copyright info and License #s if nececcary

Hide your SUMMER and Background Layers and Merge the other layers together

So now you should have 3 layers

Your background layer, your SUMMER layer and your Merged layer

Now we're ready to Animate this thing!

There may be other methods of creating this effect, but this is how I do it

Fire up Animation Shop

In PSP -Highlight your SUMMER Layer- Copy (NOT Copy Merged)

Over in Ani Shop- Paste as a New Animation

Effects-Insert Image Effects-Use the default Underwater settings

This will create 7 frames-DELETE the 7th frame

Minimize this and go back to PSP

Highlight the bottom layer and copy

Back in Ani Shop- Paste as a New Animation

This will be the base for your tag

Duplicate until you have 6 frames

Open your SUMMER Animation

Edit-Select All-Edit-Copy

Then, on your tag-Edit-Select All

Edit-Paste Into selected frames and move into position and click to place

Back in PSP

On the Merged Layer - Edit-Copy

Back in Ani Shop- Paste as a New Animation

Duplicate until you have 6 frames

Select all-Edit-Copy

Then on your Tag with Background and SUMMER Animation

Edit Paste Into Selected Frames and click to place

I used the same method to Animate the Avatar

Here's another Example

Thanks for trying my Tutorial

I love seeing results, so please post links to them in the comments section on my blog

HERE