Update 11/29. I wrote this up into a tutorial last night but Comcast was being a bitch and wouldn't let me online and so I couldn't update my blog. You can find this tut here.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
New Tag and Tut
Update 11/29. I wrote this up into a tutorial last night but Comcast was being a bitch and wouldn't let me online and so I couldn't update my blog. You can find this tut here.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Got to show off here
My daughter is still a beginner in tag making. About a year ago I got her her own license with CILM so she can use my CILM tubes. Well yesterday she made her first animated tag. It's from my Sitting Pretty tut. She did a fantastic job so I just have to show it off.
Note: there has been some comments from a few people saying that my daughter doesn't have permission to use my CILM tubes. I have permission from Anthony Guerra himself to share my tubes with my 13 year old daughter and he himself assigned her license number to her.
Can't Decide
Ok so I did a new tut tonight. You can find it here. I couldn't decide which tube I wanted to use so I did one of each. But now I can't decide which tag I like better. .
Friday, November 26, 2010
Have you done one of my tuts?
If you make a tag using one of my tuts, I'd love to see it. Email me at tutstagsbyq@gmail.com and I'll post it here on my blog.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Monday, November 22, 2010
Sparkle Tut
This tut was done in PSP 8, but can be done in other versions too.
I used the beautiful artwork of Caron Vinson. You must have a license to use her work.
Supplies:
Tube of choice
VM Natural Plugin
Animation Shop
Font of choice
1. Open a new transparent 500 x 500 workspace. Flood fill white.
2. Activate your tube, copy and paste as a new layer onto your workspace. Resize if needed.
3. Effects, 3D effects and apply a drop shadow to your tube with these settings: HV 2, Opacity 50, Blur 2.5.
4. Click on your text tool and select your font. Create as vector, stroke 1, size will depend on the length of your name. Select a darker color from your tube for your foreground and a lighter color for the background. Add your name to your tag and place it where desired. Apply same drop shadow as the tube.
5. Add a new raster layer and add your watermark and copyright information.
6. Resize if necessary, all layers CHECKED.
7. Layers, merge visible.
8. Using your crop tool, crop any excess space around your tag.
9. Duplicate your merged layer twice so you have a total of 3 layers. Activate the first layer by clicking on it in the layer palette.
10. Go to Effects, Plugins, VM Natural, Sparkle. Apply these settings to the first layer of your tag.
11. Activate your second layer, go back to the sparkle plugin and change the random seed number to something different so the sparkles will be placed in a different location.
12. Repeat with your 3rd layer again with a different random seed number.
13. The numbers you pick for the random seed aren't set in stone so feel free to play around with them to achieve the look you're going for.
14. If you don't have Animation Shop open, load it now.
15. Hide the 2nd and 3rd layers of your tag by clicking on the eye. Activate your first layer and ctrl c to copy. Go to AS and ctrl v to paste as a new animation.
16. Now hide the 1st layer and unhide the 2nd layer and click on it. Copy and paste AFTER the current frame. Remember to ctrl shift L to paste after current frame.
17. Now hide the 2nd layer and unhide the 3rd, click on it and repeat the last step and paste AFTER the 2nd frame in AS.
18. Save your tag and you're done. Congrats!
Tutorial ©2006 Queina. All rights reserved. Any simularities to any other tutorials is purely coincidental.
Slat Tut
This tut was originally written in psp 8, and has been rewritten in psp X3, but can be done in other versions.
Supplies:
Slat tube here
(I did not create any of these, have just collected them over the years. I did convert them all to psd format)
JPG image of choice, I chose a flower image from MorgueFile
Tube of choice, I used a tube by Caron Vinson. You must have a license to use her art.
Font of choice, I used Cocktail Script
Open your slat tube, your jpg and your tube in psp. Open a 500 x 500 transparent workspace in psp. Flood fill raster 1 with white. Copy your slat tube and paste as a new layer on your workspace. Resize larger if needed, all layers UNCHECKED. I resized mine up 120%. Rename this layer slat.
Select All, float, defloat.
On your jpg, press shift d to make a duplicate and close the original. Resize if needed so it's a little bit bigger then your slat. Copy and paste as a new layer on your workspace. Use your mover tool to arrange it how you like it. I moved mine up a bit so the flower was more centered in the slat. Selections, Invert. Hit delete on your keyboard. Deselect. You should now have something like this. Rename this layer slat fill.
Click on your first slat layer in the layer palette and go to Effects, 3d effects, drop shadow, 1, 1, 50, 5.
Activate the slat fill layer. Copy your tube and paste as a new layer on your workspace. Resize if needed, all layers UNCHECKED. Use your mover tool to put it where you like it. Give it a deeper drop shadow than you did the slat. For mine I did -3, -3, 50, 8.
Click on your text tool and select your font, create as vector, size will depend on the length of your name and your chosen font. Pick your foreground and background colors from your tube or your slat fill image. Whichever you think looks best. Click on your workspace and type in your name. Click apply and move into position. Convert to raster. Give it the same drop shadow you did for the slat.
Add a new raster layer and add your copyright information and watermark if you use one.
With your crop tool, click and drag a box around your tag, dragging on the corners or sides to adjust and double click inside the box to crop off the excess, making sure not to cut too close. You don't want to crop off parts of your tag, always be sure to leave a little room around all sides, especially with drop shadows as it really looks horrible when those get cropped off.
Delete the white raster 1 layer. Merge visible and save as a png. Or merge flat and save as a jpg and you're all done. Congrats!
Tutorial ©2006 Queina. All rights reserved. Any simularities to any other tutorials is purely coincidental.
Sitting Pretty 2
This tut was written in PSP X3 but can be done in other versions too. I used the artwork of Keith Garvey. You must have a license to use his work.
Supplies:
Pink Ice scrap kit by Vicki. Available at the Creative Misfits blog here.
Nice fat font. I used A&S Puff Daddy.
2nd font. I used A&S Black Swan.
Sitting or laying tube of choice.
Super Blade Pro and Coconut Ice preset.
Eye Candy 4000
Open a new workspace 600 x 600. Flood fill white.
Select your text tool and your fat font. Foreground a dark color from your tube, I used #af5771, background null, create as vector. Size for this font is 125, it might be different if you use a different font. Click on your canvas and type your name or word of choice in all caps. I'm using a Garv tube so I typed out the word Garvey. Objects, Align, Center in canvas. Grab the bottom node and drag your word so it's a big higher. Convert to raster. Name this layer outline.
Click on your magic wand and click inside each letter of your word/name. Selections, Modify, Expand by 1. Add a new raster layer. Keep selected.
Open a paper from your scrap kit. I used paper 5. Click on your flood fill tool. Then click on the foreground of your materials palette and go to the pattern tab and find your paper you just opened. Angle 0, Scale 100. Fill each letter with your paper. Keep selected still.
Go to effects, Plugins, Flaming Pear, Super Blade Pro and apply the Coconut Ice preset. Deselect. Move this layer below your outline layer. Activate the outline layer and merge down 1 time.
Open one of your wordart elements from you scrap kit. I used Winter Wishes. Copy and paste as a new layer on your canvas. Resize 70%, bicubic, all layers unchecked.
Effects, Plugins, Eye Candy 4000. Apply the Gradient Glow with the following settings and the color white.
If you don't have Eye Candy 4000, you can use a gradient glow from another Eye Candy with slightly different settings.
Open the two snowflake ornaments in your kit. Copy and paste the silver one onto your canvas. Resize 25%, move it over so it's hanging from one of the W's. Repeat with the pink snowflake and the other W.
Give the 2 snowflayers and your large word layer that you made a drop shadow. 1, 1, 50, 4.
Open your tube. Copy and paste onto your canvas and arrange her so she appears to be sitting or laying on your text. Give her a darker drop shadow: -2, 2, 70, 8.
If you didn't use your name before follow this step, otherwise skip it. Add a new raster layer. Select your text tool again and choose your 2nd font. Use the same foreground color you used before and pick a lighter background color, I used #f0a0c5. This time we're going to create as floating. The size I used with my font is 90. Add your name, do not deselect. Add the same SBP preset as you did the main word. Deselect. Give it the same drop shadow as you did the large word layer.
Add your copyright info and watermark. Hide the white layer and merge visible on all the other layers. Crop off the excess around your tag. Delete the white layer to save as png or merge all to save as a jpg. Congrats you're done!
©2010 Queina. All rights reserved. Any simularities to any other tutorials is purely coincidental.
Latex Fetish Tut
This is my latest tut that I've written. I'm in the process of writing a few more, just time never seems to be on my side lately. You can find this tutorial on my website here.
Mini Tut - Wood Frame Window
This tut was written in psp X3 but can be done in other versions. This tut is only for the window frame.
My Supplies Here, save to your pattern folder.
Open up your wood grain pattern of choice and minimize. Open a new raster image 600 x 500 transparent.
Go to View and click on Rulers.
Select all, Selections, Modify, Contract by 20. Selections, Invert.
Flood fill selection with your woodgrain pattern. Keep Selected.
Give it an Inner Bevel, I used the one below.
Add a new raster layer. Click on your Selection tool. Type Rectangle. Mode Add. Feather 0. Start from the top around the middle. Draw a thin line, about 10 pixels wide all the way from the top of the frame down to the bottom. Make sure it overlaps a bit and don't worry, we'll fix it. Flood fill with your wood pattern. Keep selected.
Give it the same inner bevel as you did the frame. Duplicate this bar 1 time so you have a total of 2 bars.
Our workspace is 600 pixels wide so move one bar to exactly 200 on the ruler. Move the other bar to 400.
Hide your raster 1 layer and merge visible on the 2 bar layers. Move this layer below your frame layer and unhide the frame.
Add a new raster layer. Click on your selection tool again and this time draw a bar going horizontally across your frame, again about 10 pixels wide. Make sure it goes all the way from one side to another. Flood fill with your woodgrain pattern and give it the same inner bevel except change the angle to 358. Deselect. Move it to 250 on your workspace and move it under the layer with the vertical bars.
Merge visible on all layers. Give your frame a drop shadow. I used HV 0, O 60, B 8. Now your frame is done. Save as a psp or psd image. This window has 6 panes but you can make more or less panes by varying the number of horizontal and verticle bars you put on your frame. The frame looks great with scenic pictures such as the example at the top of the page.
Tutorial ©2009 Queina. All rights reserved. Any simularities to any other tutorials is purely coincidental and is not done intentionally.
Holiday tag
Prince Charming
This tut was written in PSP X3 but can be done in other versions too. I used the artwork of Elias Chatzoudis. You must have a license to use his work.
Supplies:
It's 9th one down the page, right about where the Labels start and above the templates preview on the brown background.
Blues Scrapkit by Bubbles-Dream here.
Mask by Doris at Scraps Dimensions here.
Eye Candy 4000 or other Eye Candy that has Gradient Glow
Xenofex 1.1
(Xenofex 2 can be used but mine wasn't working at the time this tutorial was written)
Font of choice, I used PhyllisIniD.
Open template, tube and mask in psp, shift D to duplicate on all 3 and close the originals. Minimize your mask for now. Delete the copyright layer on your template and go to Image, Canvas Size and change it to 650 x 650 pixels with placement in the center. Remember to save as you go.
Add a new raster layer, then go to Layers, Arrange, Send to Bottom. Flood fill this layer white.
Open a paper from your kit, I used paper 11. Copy and paste as a new layer on your canvas, it's ok that it doesn't fill up the whole thing. Go to Layers, New Mask Layer, From Image. Find your mask in the drop down menu, Source Luminance ticked, invert unchecked. Click ok and merge group. Select your raster deform tool and drag the right and left side out a bit and then the top and bottom in a bit. Here's a before and after using the deform tool.
Open your sparkles element from your kit. Make sure you're still on your mask layer. Copy and paste the sparkles as a new layer on your canvas. Resize 80%, bicubic, all layers unchecked. Image, Free Rotate, to the left 90 degrees, all layers unchecked. Use your mover tool to move it up a bit so you can see more of it on the top.
Activate the raster 4 layer. Select all, Selections Float, Selections Defloat. Open a paper from your kit, I used paper 8. Copy and paste as a new layer. Selections, Invert, hit delete, deselect. Delete the raster 4 layer.
Activate the raster 2 layer. Select all, Selections Float, Selections Defloat. Add a new raster layer and flood fill with a light color from your tube or use a paper from your kit. Deselect and delete the raster 2 layer.
Repeat the last step with the same color/paper on your raster 6 layer. The layer below this layer should be raster 3. Move it above your large square layer. Do the same with the merged layer, move it above the layer with the 2 smaller squares. So your layer palette should look like this.
Ok the merged layer should still be activated. Select all, Selections Float, Selections Defloat. Open a paper from your kit, I used paper 5. Copy and paste as a new layer. Selections, Invert, hit delete and deselect. Effects, Inner Bevel and use settings below then delete the merged layer.
Repeat the last step with the frame around the large square, It should be labeled raster 3. You should now have something like this.
Activate the raster 7 layer, should be the wordart. Select your Manual Color Correction tool. Left click on one of the letters of your wordart to get that color in the source box. Now right click on a color from your tube to get that color in the target box. Or you can click in the target box and enter in a color code. I used #b3d4e2. Make sure Manual Target Color is ticked and click ok.
Go to Effects, Plugins, Eye Candy 4000, Gradient Glow. Use settings below. The color is white. And after adding the glow give it a drop shadow of 2, 2, 50, 5.
Now go to the top layer in your palette. I chose not to use the shoe so I deleted it, but you might feel differently. The layer below it is your left doodle. Merge that layer down onto the one below it so the two doodles are on the same layer. Give them the same dropshadow you used for the wordart.
Now activate your large square layer. Copy and paste your tube as a new layer and move it over the square where you want it to be. Give it a drop shadow as before. Click the square layer again and Select All, Selections Float, Selections Defloat, Selections Invert. Click on your tube layer and hit delete. Change blend mode to Luminance Legacy.
Now we're going to give the 2 border layers a drop shadow. First use 1, 1, 50, 5. Then repeat again with -1 for both the horizontal and vertical. It should now look something like this.
Repeat that set of drop shadows with the bottom rectangle layer too.
Activate the top layer in your palette. Copy and paste your tube as a new layer. Arrange her where you want her to be and give her a darker drop shadow with the vertical at -3 and the horizontal at 2.
Open the butterfly_texture element. Copy and paste as a new layer, mirror and resize by 40%. Move it over to the left size so it's sitting on the corner of the square. Give it a drop shadow, 2, 2, 50, 5.
Open the heart dangle element, copy and paste as a new layer, resize 50% and move over to the right side so it's hanging from the other corner. Give it the same drop shadow but make sure to check the box for shadow on a new layer.
Activate the top layer in your palette and add your copyright information and watermark. Activate your mask layer. Click on the crop tool and on the tool options bar click on Snap crop rectangle to layer opaque.
Drag the nodes out a little on all 4 sides then double click to crop. This will remove all the excess white from our tag. Make sure you don't crop off any parts of your tube.
Now find the butterfly layer in your palette, mine is raster 12. Zoom in about 1000% on your canvas so you can see the butterfly really well.
We're going to select part of it so we can add noise. Click on your freehand selection tool. Type is Point to Point. Mode Add. Now we're going to go around the light round areas on the wings. Click in small sections around the first circle, double clicking when you've gone all the way around and it'll expand out a bit to look like this.
Now repeat with the other 3 circles so when you're all done you'll have this.
Selections, Modify, Contract by 1. You can now zoom back out to 100% again. Rename this layer butterfly. Now duplicate 2 times for a total of 3 layers. Rename the 2nd and 3rd layers, butterfly 2 and butterfly 3, respectively. Click on the first layer. Go to Adjust, Add/Remove Noise, Add Noise. Gaussian, 45% and monochrome checked. Click on the 2nd butterfly layer. Repeat the noise at 50%. Click on the 3rd buttefly layer and repeat the noise once more at 55%. Deselect. Hide the 2nd and 3rd butterfly layers for now.
Now activate the heart dangle layer which on my palette is raster 13. We're going to select the glitter portion inside the heart the same way we did with the butterfly. Zoom in about 800% and using your freehand selection tool go around the glitter so it's selected like this. (click on the screenshot to see it full size if you can't see the selection well)
Zoom back out to 100% again. Rename this layer dangle. Duplicate twice and rename so we have 3 layers just like we did with the butterfly. Click on the 1st dangle layer. Go to Effects, Plugins, Xenofex 1.1, Constellation. Select the Confetti preset from the drop down menu. (You can use the constellation from Xenofex 2 but my plugin isn't working right now and so I don't know the settings, sorry)
Click on the 2nd dangle layer, repeat the Constellation but move the random seed bar over one way or the other. Repeat again with the 3rd dangle layer, moving the random seed bar to a different spot. Deselect. Hide the 2nd and 3rd dangle layers for now.
Activate the layer just above your mask layer. This should be the sparkle layer from your kit. Rename sparkle. Select all, Selections Float, Selections Defloat. Duplicate twice for 3 layers, rename as we did before. Now add the constellation to each layer like you did before with the heart dangle, remembering to change the random seed each time. Deselect when done.
Activate the top layer in your palette. Click on your text tool and select your font. I used PhyllisIniD. Using light and dark colors from your tube for the foreground and background, add your name to your tag. Give it the same inner bevel you used for the frames but change the shininess down to 20 and the elevation to 54. Give it a drop shadow of 2, 2, 50, 8. Make sure you uncheck the box that puts the shadow on a new layer.
Now to animate. You've got 3 layers each of the butterfly, dangle and sparkle. The 2nd and 3rd layers of all of those should be hidden. Ctrl Shift C to copy merged. Ctrl V to paste as a new animation in AS. Go back to psp. Now this is where it's important. You're going to hide the first layers of those 3 items and unhide the 2nd layers. Copy merged again and Ctrl Shift L to paste AFTER current frame. Go back to psp again. This time hide the 2nd layers of all 3 and unhide the 3rd layers. Copy merged one last time and ctrl shift L to paste after current frame again. Select all. Alt Enter to bring up the frame properties box. Change the speed to 15. Resize to 80% if desired and save your tag. Congrats you're done!
©2010 Queina. All rights reserved. Any simularities to any other tutorials is purely coincidental.
Glitter Siggy
Supplies:
Sparkle Patterns HERE
Fat font of your choice. Examples of fat fonts are AntsyPants, Balloon, BellBottom. A skinny font will not show the sparkle pattern very well.
Animation Shop
1. Open your sparkle animation in AS. Select all, copy and paste as a new image in psp. There are 3 frames in the animation and so 3 layers showing in psp. From the bottom up, rename the 2nd and 3rd layers as you see below.
2. Open a new 500 x 300 transparent workspace in PSP.
3. Click on your text tool and select the font you're going to use.
4. Click on the foreground box and select a color to compliment the sparkle you chose. Background will be null. To do that if you don't know how, click on the little icon that's a circle with a line going through it.
5. Click on your workspace to bring up the text entry box. Type in your name. Create as Vector, make it a nice large size, for my name the size I used is 125, yours might be larger or smaller, depending on the font you picked and the length of your name. To change the text size, highlight your name in text entry box and change the number on the text options bar. Click apply. Do NOT convert to raster yet.
6. Go to Objects, Align, Center in Canvas. You're going to have something like this. (click on the screenshot to view full size)
7. Convert to raster. Rename this layer border.
8. Select your magic wand. Mode Add, Tolerance and Feather 0, click inside each letter of your name. Do not deselect until I tell you to. Selections, Modify, Expand by 1.
9. Activate your sparkle pattern. Make sure frame 1 is selected. Hide the 2nd and 3rd frame layers.
10. Now activate your canvas with your name again, select your flood fill tool and click on the foreground box on your Materials palette. Click the pattern tab and then click the square box and find the sparkle pattern. Should be first one in the list. Angle 0, Scale 100.
11. Add a new raster layer and click inside each letter filling it with the sparkle pattern. Remember to keep selected. It'll now look like this. When you're done hide this layer for now so it again looks like it does in step 6.
12. Now activate your sparkle pattern again. Hide frame 1 and unhide frame 2 and activate it.
13. Activate your canvas again, add a new raster layer and click on the foreground box of your material palette and the little drop down box. Now you'll notice 2 patterns side by side. The first one is the 1st frame of your pattern, the 2nd one is the 2nd frame, click on that one.
14. Again flood fill inside each of the letters with this new pattern. Hide this layer when done.
15. Repeat steps 9 through 14 with the 3rd sparkle frame pattern. When you're done your layer palette should look like this.
16. You may now deselect. Hide raster 3 with you flood filled pattern and unhide raster 1. Activate the border layer and go to Layers, Arrange, Bring to Top.
17. Activate the raster 1 layer again. Give it a drop shadow of 0, 0, 70, 10 and make sure you check the box to put the shadow on a new layer, this is VERY important.
18. Activate the top layer again, which should be your border layer. Add a new raster layer and add your watermark if you use one. Click on your crop tool and drag it out over your name, making sure you don't get too close so you don't crop off part of your name or the drop shadow/watermark.
Now it's time to animate
19. Edit, Copy Merged or Ctrl Shift C and go to AS and paste as a new animation.
20. Go back to psp, hide raster 1 and unhide raster 2. Copy merged again and go to AS and this time paste AFTER current frame. Ctrl Shift L will do this for you.
21. Again, back to psp. Hide raster 2 and unhide raster 3, copy merged and paste after current frame in AS.
22. You'll now have 3 frames with your name in animation shop. And you should notice that the sparkle pattern in each one is different and each one matches the 3 frames of the original sparkle pattern you picked.
23. Select all and press Alt Enter to bring up the Frame Properties box. I thought the animation went a little fast so I changed the speed to 15. You can leave it at 10, which is default or change it to a different number to suit your taste.
24. Last step is to give it a white background. Shift Alt Enter will bring up the Animation Properties box. Click the bubble for Canvas color, click inside the colored square and change the color to white. Click ok. Your animation now has a white background. Save your tag and congrats, you're done!
©Queina 2006. All rights reserved. Any simularities to any other tutorials is purely coincidental.
5. Click on your workspace to bring up the text entry box. Type in your name. Create as Vector, make it a nice large size, for my name the size I used is 125, yours might be larger or smaller, depending on the font you picked and the length of your name. To change the text size, highlight your name in text entry box and change the number on the text options bar. Click apply. Do NOT convert to raster yet.
6. Go to Objects, Align, Center in Canvas. You're going to have something like this. (click on the screenshot to view full size)
7. Convert to raster. Rename this layer border.
8. Select your magic wand. Mode Add, Tolerance and Feather 0, click inside each letter of your name. Do not deselect until I tell you to. Selections, Modify, Expand by 1.
9. Activate your sparkle pattern. Make sure frame 1 is selected. Hide the 2nd and 3rd frame layers.
10. Now activate your canvas with your name again, select your flood fill tool and click on the foreground box on your Materials palette. Click the pattern tab and then click the square box and find the sparkle pattern. Should be first one in the list. Angle 0, Scale 100.
11. Add a new raster layer and click inside each letter filling it with the sparkle pattern. Remember to keep selected. It'll now look like this. When you're done hide this layer for now so it again looks like it does in step 6.
12. Now activate your sparkle pattern again. Hide frame 1 and unhide frame 2 and activate it.
13. Activate your canvas again, add a new raster layer and click on the foreground box of your material palette and the little drop down box. Now you'll notice 2 patterns side by side. The first one is the 1st frame of your pattern, the 2nd one is the 2nd frame, click on that one.
14. Again flood fill inside each of the letters with this new pattern. Hide this layer when done.
15. Repeat steps 9 through 14 with the 3rd sparkle frame pattern. When you're done your layer palette should look like this.
16. You may now deselect. Hide raster 3 with you flood filled pattern and unhide raster 1. Activate the border layer and go to Layers, Arrange, Bring to Top.
17. Activate the raster 1 layer again. Give it a drop shadow of 0, 0, 70, 10 and make sure you check the box to put the shadow on a new layer, this is VERY important.
18. Activate the top layer again, which should be your border layer. Add a new raster layer and add your watermark if you use one. Click on your crop tool and drag it out over your name, making sure you don't get too close so you don't crop off part of your name or the drop shadow/watermark.
Now it's time to animate
19. Edit, Copy Merged or Ctrl Shift C and go to AS and paste as a new animation.
20. Go back to psp, hide raster 1 and unhide raster 2. Copy merged again and go to AS and this time paste AFTER current frame. Ctrl Shift L will do this for you.
21. Again, back to psp. Hide raster 2 and unhide raster 3, copy merged and paste after current frame in AS.
22. You'll now have 3 frames with your name in animation shop. And you should notice that the sparkle pattern in each one is different and each one matches the 3 frames of the original sparkle pattern you picked.
23. Select all and press Alt Enter to bring up the Frame Properties box. I thought the animation went a little fast so I changed the speed to 15. You can leave it at 10, which is default or change it to a different number to suit your taste.
24. Last step is to give it a white background. Shift Alt Enter will bring up the Animation Properties box. Click the bubble for Canvas color, click inside the colored square and change the color to white. Click ok. Your animation now has a white background. Save your tag and congrats, you're done!
©Queina 2006. All rights reserved. Any simularities to any other tutorials is purely coincidental.
Siggy Rotator
This tutorial will teach you how to set up a siggy rotator for forums and/or Incredimail. If you're like many of us, you have a lot of tags. You like to show them off, but it's time consuming to go through them all to pick out which tag you want to use to post on a forum or in your email each time. This tut makes things easier for you.
There various rotator sites out there but for this tut I'm going to show you how to use 2 different sites, both the best that I've found and use. The first one is called CGIspy. The second is called Ultra Randomization (for this tut I'm going to refer to it as UR). I prefer the 2nd one myself.
So let's start with CGIspy. So first you need to go to the site and sign up for an account if you don't already have one. Once you get registered and activate your account, log in and you'll be taken to the Administration page. Click on Random Items under Script Manager.
Now on the next page, click on Add Images and you'll be taken to the add images screen
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Or if you choose to use UR, create or log into your account. Click on My Randomizers. If you do not have any randomizers made already, then type in the name of one you want to create and click Create. I have randomizers for certain seasons/holidays, one for forum tags, and forum avatars, etc.
If you already have a randomizer made and you want to use it for this purpose then click on Options then click on Add/Delete/Manage Images. You will now be on the main page for your randomizer.
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Now you need your tags to be a on a image hosting site. I'll give instructions for both Photobucket and Fotki, though in my personal opinion Fotki is better, they don't delete your images like PB is known to do.
Unfortunately you have to add each tag to the rotator individually but it's not too hard. Let's start with Photobucket first. So when you have your tag uploaded to photobucket, click on the thumbnail to show it full size.
On the right side of the screen is a box with links. Click on the one for Direct Link. It'll automatically copy it for you.
Fotki is a bit different. Click to view the tag full size. Click on the Share button above the tag.
If you have a paid fotki account, you click on the first link as you see below.
If you have a free account then you click on HotLink this image.
On the next page, click the link that says Direct link to this photo:
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Ok now back to our rotator. Again let's start with CGIspy. Now on the add images page and paste the url you copied into one of the boxes you see below.
You'll repeat this process for each tag that you want to add to the rotator. Click submit when all the slots are full and it'll take you to a page showing all the urls you've added so far. Do not worry that the page says delete images.
Click on Random Items Manager to be taken back to the Random Items page. Click Add Images again and repeat process until you have all of your tags added to the rotator.
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Now let's learn how to add tags to the UR rotator. Now on the main page for your rotator there is an Add new images box. Paste your copied url in the box and click add image. Now this is what I like about this rotator over the other one, when it adds the tag, it shows you a thumbnail of the image.
You unfortunately can not add more then one tag at a time, but the site makes up for it, for it's ease of use. And if you need to delete a tag you just click on the thumbnail and you get options.
As you can see by the image above, it gives the url which is clickable. You view information, when it was added and a delete link if needed. Now this is convenient if by some chance the tag got deleted on your image hosting site, you can mouse over the url, see which tag it is, re upload it to your PB or Fotki site, then delete the tag on UR and upload it again to there. Again a huge advantage over CGIspy because you can see what tag is causing the issue instead of wading through a ton of links on their delete images page.
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Ok now that you've added tags to your rotator you need to get the link to make it work.
CGIspy first: When you're all done go to the top of the Script Editor box and click on HTML Codes. On the next page you'll see html codes for different items. The 2nd box has the code you want, but you don't need the whole thing. Just copy the 2nd line just like you see here, make sure you only get what's between the quotation marks.
With UR, scroll to the bottom of the page were you added all your tags and click Linking Options. On the next page, set your options like this:
Always set the Image Extension to GIF, if you set it to png or jpg, it won't show your animated tags. Click on the generated link and copy it. Next, how to add it to a forum and then IM.
Now how to use it. First up, let's do forums. They're all pretty close to the same, so when you're typing out a new reply or a new topic, click the button to add a image if using CGIspy. Do NOT click the button if you're using UR, you don't need it.
And you'll get image codes in your post that look like this: [img][/img]. Paste your URL between those img brackets like this.
If using UR, just paste your generated code in that already has the img brackets on it into the post body.
If you click preview, you see this.
Your tag has been added but more importantly, every time that post is viewed, the tag will be different cause that's what the rotator does.
Now for email, this is a bit harder and helps if you have a page you can copy from like a forum or website. So let's use the forum we just posted our image to. Right click on the tag, and click copy image.
Now go to Incredimail. Open up a new email. Click the drop down arrow next to the Signature button and click on New Signature.
Now right click into the big white box and click paste and it'll paste your tag into the box. but oh look, it's a different one. Click save and type in the name. Mine says Siggy Rotator.
Now click the signature button and it automatically inserts a tag into your email. And like with the forum it changes every time the email is viewed.
And that's all there is to it. If you have any questions, please leave a comment and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.
Tutorial ©2010 Queina. All rights reserved. Any simularities to any other tutorials is purely coincidental and is not done intentionally.
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