Created May 2003 © PSP Designs Unlimited
Please do not place or copy this tutorial without written permission from me
you are welcome to link to this tutorial with a text link only.

This tutorial is written in and for PSP Version 7 and assumes you have a working knowledge of PSP.
Any resemblence to another tutorial is purely coincidental.

For this tutorial you will need the following
Paint Shop Pro, get it HERE
My Tube Zip HERE
SeeSaw Tube HERE
Bellbottom font HERE

Extract the font to your fonts folder (normally C;drive\windows\fonts)

Open the tubes in psp, duplicate, and close the originals....minimise for later.

Open the seesaw image in PSP, duplicate and close the original.

Open a new image W500 x H400...flood fill with white

Copy the seesaw image and paste into the white canvas as a new layer
place in the bottom half of the canvas but not right at the bottom
leave about a 50 pixel gap

Selections > select all> selections > float > selections > modify >expand by 1 pixel.

Flood fill with a pattern or colour of your choice....I am using a wood fill from PSP

Add an inner bevel of your choice, or use my settings below

Selections > Select none.

Add your 2 tubes as new layers to each end of the see saw
name the layers appropriately

Add a new layer and name it the first letter of your name mine is (J)...drag this layer under your tube layers
but on top of your see saw layer.

Grab the text tool and click your image to bring the text box up

Set your Fore and Backgrounds to colours or patterns of your choice
I am using a black stroke and gradient fills
Bellbottom font - size 72 - Bold - floating - antialias checked
You will have to adjust the size depending on how many letters there are in your name.

We are going to add one letter at a time so that we can deform them to fit the shape of the see-saw

Add the first letter of your name
New layer name it 2nd letter of your name and add the next letter
repeat this till your name is complete, making sure each letter is on its own layer.

Using the deform tool...deform all your letters so that they fit and curve with the see saw
You should have something like this

Hide all layers, apart from the letters of your name, make sure one of your letters is the active layer and merge visible
rename this layer text.

while still on the text layer add an inner bevel as below

.

Unhide your layers....apart from the whte background and merge visible

Add a drop shadow to the merged layer with the following settings
Horizontal & Vertical = 3
Opacity = 70
Blur = 12
Colour = #404040

Duplicate the merged layer 3 times so that you have 4 merged layers
name them layer 1-2-3-4 from the bottom upwards.

Activate layer 2
Image > rotate > 6 degrees left.....all layers unchecked.....effects > sharpen > sharpen.

Activate layer 4
Image > rotate > 6 degrees right....all layers unchecked....effects > sharpen > sharpen.

unhide your background layer and crop your image, making sure you dont crop any of your see-saw images.

you should have something like this now

NOTE; I actually added a few more layers and rotated them 3 degrees left and right
Making a total of 8 layers...my layer palette looked like this,


You can add extra frames if you wish, but the above method will work as well

Activate the background layer, hide layers 2-3 & 4....merge layer 1and bg and save as seesaw1 in psp format

undo merge...repeat the step above, merging layer 2 with the background and save as seesaw 2 in psp format

repeat with layers 3 & 4

Launch Animation shop

use the animation wizard to open your 4 images,

File > Animation Wizard
1st window =
2nd window =
3rd window =
4th window =
5th window click add image and browse to find your 4 seesaw images

Make sure they are in the correct order....next > finish.

right click on your first frame and view animation

If you are happy with the speed and size, optimise and save as gif Voila.....you have a see-saw!!!!


If you have any problems, you can send me an email




If you would like to make a donation to help keep my website
and tutorials online, please make a donation by clicking the link below.
Every little helps.