Animated Signature

In this tutorial you will learn how to make animated signatures. For this you will
need to have Adobe ImageReady.

1. First make your background. Call the layer "background". I used brushes
which I downloaded from Deviant Art to make mine.

2. Once you have made the background, in the Layers window, make a copy
of it byright clicking on the layer called "background" and then go to
duplicate layer. Now you should have a layer called "Background copy"

3. On the "Background copy" set the opticity to 50%

4. Now put the main picture onto the image and add any text if you want.

5. Click on the layer called "Background" and then click on the little file
icon in the layers window. This is called the set button. Now a folder
should appearbetween background and background copy.

6. Now paste the pictures you want to change into the document and
then drag the layers into the folder called "Set one". "Set one" should
be between the "Background" and "Background Copy" layers.

7. Now it should look something like below.

8. Now click on the folder called "set 1" and then click on the Layer mask Button
(Shown on the diagram in step 5).

9. Now use the lasso tool and cut an shape like below but dont go to close to the
edge of the pictures in the set.

10. Go select> inverse and then go Select -> Feather or Alt+Ctrl+D and
type in a number between 10 and 15 then click "ok".

11. Now use the bucket and fill the selected area with black. Then go select ->
Deselect. Now the edges of the pictures should be hidden like below.

12. Now in set 1 click the eye on the two images that will be animated to
hide them.

13. Now go file -> Jump to>Image Ready (shift+ctrl+m for shortcut).

14. Once it has loaded into Image Ready in the Animation window
make 2 new frames. You should now have a total of 3 frames like below.

15. Select the 1st frame and click the eye on the top picture to show
the image, this image will be put into all of the frames. Select the 2nd
layer and then click the eye on the top picture to hide it and then click
the eye on the bottom on to show it. Leave frame 3 how it is.

16. Select frame one and while holding shift select frame 2. Now click
the tween button(Shown in step 14). Use the settings shown below

17. Now select the last frame and 2nd to last frame and click the tween
button.Use the same settings as you did in the other.

18. Select the last frame and delete it. Then select the 1st frame and
set the delay to 1 second. Select the 5th frame and set the delay to
one second. Leave all the rest how they are. Now click the play button
and see how it goes.

19. Next go window -> optimize. in the drop down menu select
"GIF 64 Dithered"

20. Once you happy with it go File -> Save optimized and save it
where you like. You should now have an animation similar to the one below.