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Add Your Name To An Existing Animation with Paint Shop Pro and Animation Shop

From Arizona Kate, Guest Contributor, for About.com

4 of 10

Making Canvas Size Larger

adding space
Now that you have your animation exported to Paint Shop Pro, you can select Image > Canvas Size from the main menu to add some blank space. Use a canvas size that is large enough to give you plenty of room to add your name to the image. In the Canvas Size dialog box, select 0 for the left margin if you want existing image over to the left and blank space on right. Or select 0 for right margin, to keep existing image on right. Then select OK.

When enlarging canvas size, PSP will use the background color you have selected to fill the new space. If this turns out to be a different color than you expected, you can use the Magic Wand to select this new blank area and fill with another color or leave as is. We'll be adjusting background color in one of the following steps!

Now we're ready to add our signature and we can do this either in Paint Shop Pro or Animation Shop. The advantage to adding text in Animation Shop is that you can use the Onionskin tool to assist in keeping text perfectly aligned within each frame. The disadvantage is that Animation Shop does not provide all the text effects found in Paint Shop Pro, such as drop shadow. If you want to continue working in PSP so you can add text with drop shadows and other effects, skip the next step and jump to Step 7. Warning! The steps involved in aligning layers in PSP can get a little fussy, so if that's not to your liking it'd be best to use Text tool in Animation Shop and continue with Step 5.

Sue Chastain
Guide since 1999

Sue Chastain
Graphics Software Guide

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