MAKE A CHARM FOR CHARM TABLES

 

Created March 22, 2002 © Copyright Moon's Designs
Property of Moon's Designs
This is my creation, any similarity to other tutorials on the Internet is unintentional.
Please do not copy or place this tutorial or any graphics to any other place without written permission directly from me. Thank you.

 

This tutorial is a request from Jacqui of the WOSIB Designers Garden. Many groups, such as WOSIB and The Site Fights, have charm clubs. I will show you how easy and quick it is to make a small charm and also how to animate the text if you should choose to do so. The charms also make wonderful Buddy Icons for those who use the AIM program, as well as cute sigtags!

This tutorial is written in and for PSP Version 7.04 and Animation Shop 3.04, and assumes you have a working knowledge of PSP at a beginner-intermediate level. I am sure this can easily be done in Version 6 with a few adjustments in paths but I have only used Version 7 so I can't make promises *S*

JASC's PSP (30 day free trial)- You can get it HERE

Many of us have several tubes that can be used for your charms. You can also find hundreds of tubes sites by going to Google and typing in PSP Tubes in the search box.

Step 1:
Find the tube you want to use. If you have a tube that you have already exported, go to Files-->Browse. This opens your browser. Navigate to your tubes folder. I have my tubes sorted in separate folders.

I chose the Victorian Lady for this tutorial. To activate the tube that you would like to use, either double click on the tube or drag it to your work area.

If you find a tube from another site, open it in PSP and export it as a tube. Files-->Export-->Picture Tube.

Step 2:
Pick up your eye dropper tool from your tool palette, . As you go over your tube picture, choose the color you would like for your charm. Left click to save as the foreground color.

Step 3:
Open a new image 50x50, 16 million colors, transparent background. Flood fill with your color.

Step 4:
Go to Effects-->3D-->Buttonize. Use the following settings. This gives you a nice button for your charm.

Step 5:
Go to Layers-->Add a New Raster Layer. Pick up your tube tool, , and scroll through your tubes until you find the tube that you want to use. You will need to lower the scale to a size that fits into your image. For this tube I used a scale of 20.

Put your cursor on coordinates 25,25 (you will find the coordinates in the lower left corner of your work area. . Click on your mouse to place your tube.

Step 6:
I added a little drop shadow to give it some depth. Go to Effects-->3D-->Drop Shadow and add the following settings:

Go to Effects-->Sharpen-->Sharpen.

Step 7:
If you want to add animated text, go to Layers-->Merge-->Merge Visible. Go to Edit-->Copy. We'll get to the animated part in just a minute.

If you want to leave your charm the way it is, without animation, go to Layers-->Merge-->Merge All (Flatten) and save as a .jpg.

OPTIONAL ANIMATED TEXT

Step 8:
We are only working with one image, so I am not going to do the Animation Wizard for this tutorial. Open your Animation Shop by clicking on the filmstrip,. Because we copied our file while in PSP, we will now Paste it in Animation Shop, Ctrl+V.

Step 9:
Go to Effects-->Insert Text Effect.

Step 10:
You will now get this Screen.

Start with Animation Frame. Under Text Appearance Click on Custom Color. You can change the color of your text by double clicking the color box and choosing the color that you want. Under Define effect, set the Effect Length to 2.0 secs and Frames Per Second to 10fps. Under Effect scroll to Marquee.

Click font to change your font style and size. You can also type in your text here. Click OK when you are satisfied with your text.

When you have everything set on your Text Effect, click OK and it will bring you back to your original workspace.

Step 11:
To preview how your text will scroll across your charm, click on the filmstrip in the upper right of your tool bar.

Step 12:
You can adjust how fast your text is scrolling across your charm by going to Animation-->Frames Properties.

The following Window will open and you can enter your amount here. The higher the number the slower the scrolling will be. I used the setting of 20.

Step 13:
When you are satisfied with your charm, save it as a .gif. Files-->Save As.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial as much as I did making it.

As I stated earlier, I wrote this tutorial for the WOSIB Charm Club. Today, May 2, I received this wonderful gift from them along with this note:

Hello Patti,
Although you are not a member of the charm club,
You wrote a wonderful tutorial for us on how to make charms and we would all like to say thank you. please accept this charm as our way of saying thank you.
WOSIB Charm Club

One of my loyal followers made her charm into a sigtag and I was so impressed with it, I asked her if I could include it on the tutorial. Please visit Gails site by clicking on the tag *S*, you won't be disappointed!