Step 1

At Animation Shop, go to File/Open and locate the psp or psd file. 

With the mouse, right click on the psp file and go to Duplicate Selected. Once you do, you should see F:2 which means 2 frames.   Repeat the duplicated selected again and you will now see F:3 which means 3 frames.  Repeat again, and you will now have F:5 - meaning 5 frames. Repeat once more and you should have 9 frames.

Step 2

Go to View/Normal Viewing.  Left click the 9th frame so that it is the only frame selected.  Right click on this 9th frame, go to delete and left click so that you now have 8 frames. 

Go to Edit/Select All and all your frames of your tag file should now have blue around them.

Step 3

Open up the tn_food8 animation file.  You will see that file also consists of 8 frames, the exact same number as we have for the tag file. 

Again, go to Edit/Select All so that all the frames of the cookies and milk animation also have blue around them.

Make the tn_food8 animation file active and go to Edit/Copy. 

Make the tag file active and go to Edit/Paste into Current Frame.  Making sure you are now at the FIRST frame of the tag file and holding down the left mouse button, place the tn_food8 animation on your tag, making sure you place it on a transparent area, and release the mouse button.  You should now have the animation frames in all the 8 frames of your tag file.

The reason you are placing this animation on a transparent portion of the tag is because there are some stray white pixels on this animation and if placed on a colorized portion of the tag, the jagged edges would be very evident.

Step 4

Left click the control and A Key to select all the frames.  Right click on one of the frames and go to frame properties and type in 15. 

Step 5

Left click the 5th frame so that it is the only frame selected.  Right click on this frame and go to frame properties and type in 150.

Step 6

Before we continue to save the animation, let's first click the Customize button to make sure you have all the correct settings for this animation. 

Click the Customize button and you will see three tabs:  Colors, Optimizations and Partial Transparency.

Here is what each setting should be under the separate tabs:

Colors

255 Colors, Optimized Median Cut and Error Diffusion should be checked.

Optimizations

The middle three selections should be checked. 

The top and bottom selections - unchecked.

Partial Transparency

Convert pixels less than 40 should be checked.

Yes blend with this color and make sure that the color in the color box is WHITE.

After customizing all the animation settings, click Ok and click Next and you will get the following screens:

Screen 1

Animation versus output Size - just click next.

Screen 2

Optimization process - just click next.

Screen 3

Optimization preview - just click next.

Screen 4

Optimization results - click finish.

Step 8

Make sure to save your image as a gif file.

We hope you enjoyed this tutorial.

Purrs,

Nikki, Nichie and Sue

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