Blinded by You

I wrote this tutorial on my own.  Any similarity to another tutorial is purely coincidental.  I claim the copyright to my tutorial. You are free to do whatever you please with what you make, but please do not take my tutorial.  Do not send the tutorial through email.  Only share my link.

This tutorial is intended for a beginner to learn about making animation.  If you have any questions, please feel free to email me.

To do this tutorial you will also need Photoshop CS or CS2.  You may download a free trial at Adobe.

Remember to save as a .psd file often!

Download Unplugged Tools

1.  Open a new transparent image, size 400 x 400

2.  Choose the Custom shape tool set to heart shape and draw a red heart on the image.

3.  Right-click on the heart layer and choose Rasterize layer.

4.  Open the tube or picture that you wish to use.  I wanted to use this pic of Tommy, but just him, not the background, so it doesn't matter if the pic fills up the heart or not.  Edit > Copy.

5.  Click back on the heart layer and choose Edit > Paste.    With the mover tool, move the picture into position over the heart.

6.  Hold the CTRL button down and click on the thumbnail picture of the heart in the Layer Palette.  This will select the heart.

7.  Select > Inverse.

8.  Click on the photo layer and press the DELeTE key.  This will delete the part of the photo that extends beyond the heart.

9.  Now if you're like me, and you are only interested in the object of the picture and not the background, you'll need to cutout the object.  So choose the lasso tool, and very carefully trace along the edge of the object (Tommy) and then around the whole photo.  Now do this more carefully then I did, so your tracing will look neat.  When you have come back to where you started, right-click once on the image, and it will close the selection. 

10.  Press the delete key and you should only be left with your object (Tommy).

11.  Right-click on Tommy and choose Merge Down.

12.  Right-click on the merged layer and choose Duplicate Layer.

13.  Duplicate again until you have 5 copies of this layer.

14.  Start on the top layer.  Filter > Unplugged Tools > Jalusi.  Apply these settings:  Blinds density: 15 - 20, Opening = 0, Wire Density: 25 - 30, Wire Offset = 255, Wire Brightness = 0.  Now if you want to change the color of the blinds, you can slide the sliders around for the Red, Green and Blue to get the color you want.

15.  Click on next layer in the Layer Palette, Change the opening = 5

16.  Click on next layer in the Layer Palette, Change the opening = 8

17.  Click on next layer in the Layer Palette, Change the opening = 12

18.  Click on next layer in the Layer Palette, Change the opening = 14

19.   Right-click on the bottom layer and choose Duplicate.

20.  Choose your font tool and type your message.  Right-click on Type layer and choose Rasterize Type.

21.  Right-click on Type layer and choose merge Down.  You may have to do this more than once if you created more than one type layer.  You want to merge your type layers to that bottom heart layer.

22.  Be sure all layers are UNHidden.  Save as a PSD image.  File > Save As.

23.  Open the PSD image in Image Ready.

24.  In the Animation box, click on the side menu, and choose Make Frames From Layers.

25.  Hold the SHIFT key down, click on the first frame and the last Frame.  This will highlight ALL frames.  Then click on the side menu button, and choose Reverse Frames, so the animation will open the blinds (not close them).

26.  While all the frames are highlighted still, click on the down arrow next to the 1 sec under the frame and choose 0.5 seconds.  Set the LAST frame only to 1.0 seconds.

27.  At the top  Window > Optimize.  Check to open the optimize window.  Be sure your settings are like below so that it will save as a GIF.

28.  File > Save Optimized AS.  This will save it as a GIF animation.

 Please do not remove this tutorial from my site.  Share my url.