PSP "Marching Ants" Tag
Tutorial by Whisper

PART 3

Add a new raster layer, name it text and flood fill with white.

Effects > Plug-in Filters > MuRa's Seamless > Checks > these settings:
Color R 128
Color G 128
Color B 128
Effect 128
Ratio 192
Number 5
Slant 128
Offset, Gingham 0

Lower the opacity of the text layer to 50.

Using your mover tool move the text layer checkerboard over so that the grey checks overlay the white ones below it.

I placed my cursor at 100,100 and moved it to 120,100 and that did the trick.

Bring the opacity back up to 100.

Set your foreground to null and your background to black.

Pick your text tool, click in your image and add your text.  Be sure to set it at vector.  Here are my settings:
Bauhaus93
Size 36
Leading -10
Bold and Centered selected
Vector and Antialias selected

(Click for larger view.)

Objects > Align > Center in Canvas.

Grab your object selector, right click on your text and Create Raster Selection.

Selections > Save to Alpha Channel > Ok > Ok.

Leave Selected.

Right click on the vector layer and Convert to raster, rename this layer text shadow.

Selections > Select none.

Using your mover tool move the black text to the right and down by 2 pixels.

Layers > Arrange > Move down.

Activate your text layer.

Selections > Load from Alpha Channel > ok.

Selections > Invert.

Hit your delete key once.

Selections > Select none.

Add a new raster layer and name it text highlight.

Selections > Load from Alpha Channel > ok.

Flood fill this selection with a bright color, I am using #FFE401.

Selections > Select none.

Using your mover tool move the bright yellow text to the left and up by 2 pixels.

Layers > Arrange > Move down.  Repeat this step once more.

Activate the cutout layer.

Layers > Arrange > Bring to top.

Layers > Merge > Merge visible.

PART 4

You may want to zoom in for this part.

Add a new raster layer and name it blink 1.

Selections > Load from Disk > ww-blink1.sel > Open.

Flood fill this selection with black.
*Note - have your fill Match Mode set to None in your tool options.

Selections > Load from Disk > ww-blink2.sel > Open.

Flood fill this selection with white.

Add a new raster layer and name it blink 2.

Selections > Load from Disk > ww-blink3.sel > Open.

Flood fill this selection with black.

Selections > Load from Disk > ww-blink4.sel > Open.

Flood fill this selection with white.

Selections > Select none.

Right click on the merged layer and duplicate.

Turn off the merged layer and the blink 2 layers.

Right click on either of the visible layers and Merge > Merge visible.  Rename this layer blink 1.

Turn blink 1 layer off.  Turn on the merged layer and the blink 2 layer.  Right click on either of the visible layers and Merge > Merge visible.  Rename this layer blink 2.

Turn on the blink 1 layer.

PART 5

File > Jasc Software Products > Launch Animation Shop.

In PSP, activate the blink 1 layer.

Edit > Copy.

In Animation Shop, Edit > Paste > As new animation.

In PSP, activate the blink 2 layer.

Edit > Copy.

In Animation Shop, Edit > Paste > After current frame.

Edit > Select all.

Animation > Frame Properties > Display Time > 40 > ok.

View > Animation.

Now just save your PSP "Marching Ants" Tag!

Page 3 for the examples made by my testers.

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