If you've never attempted to make an animated GIF because you thought it would be too hard to draw the different positions needed to create the animated movement... well, now you can try it. With this tutorial we'll show you how to create an animated golfer from 3 similar clip art images -- no drawing needed! We'll also add some 'in-between' action to the golf stroke by doing some creative cut & paste to the original clip art images.
Although any version of Paint Shop Pro could be used to follow these steps, this tutorial was written specifically for Paint Shop Pro version X and for Animation Shop v.3. We will do all the image editing in Paint Shop Pro and then import image into Animation Shop. The image editing we'll be doing is pretty easy and suitable for a beginner (if you're familiar enough with PSP to know where to find the basic commands and tools).
Three things are necessary to accomplish this animation:
1) The Paint Shop Pro file must be saved in Animation Shop compatible format. As of this writing, the .pspimage format used with Paint Shop Pro 8, 9 and X is not compatible with Animation Shop. The format used by Paint Shop Pro 7 and older versions (.psp) must be used. Look for this file type in the Save As dialog box.
2) Your Animation Shop preferences must be set to 'Keep layers as separate frames'. With this setting, Animation Shop will know, when opening a .psp file containing multiple layers, to keep those layers separate rather than merging them. Each layer will then become a separate animation frame. Animation Shop preferences can be found under File > Preferences > General Program Preferences. A more detailed explanation of this setting can be found in my Troubleshooting Tips.
3) 3golfers.zip - Download and unzip this zip file. It contains a Paint Shop Pro layered image of a golfer in 3 different positions. Be sure to keep it in .psp format (not .pspimage) so we can import it into Animation Shop. Also included in zip is a golf ball image.