Animation Shop Tut
Someone asked how to make this effect in Animation Shop. Since I wondered, too, I gave it a try. Here's my version:
This is the first tut I've ever written, so I hope it helps. I'm assuming some familiarity with PaintShop Pro 9, so I'm not going into detail about tools and methods. Sorry about the lack of pictures, but I forgot to take screencaps until it was too late. Still, it ought to be easy enough to follow. If not, I'll be happy to try and answer any questions you might have.
So I started with this cap from my Remington Steele dvd:
First thing to do is clean up the cap. To do this, I used a plugin called NeatImage. You can find it here. You can use the default settings, or play with it, whatever works best with your image. Then use your square selection tool to find the area of the cap you want to keep. I ended up with this:
After coloring, I ended up with this:
One of the questions was how to get the coloring. First I duplicated the layer, then used AAA Multifilter to sharpen and adjust the highlights, midtone, and shadows, as well as the saturation. Since the interest was in the blues, I tried to adjust accordingly. After adjusting I set the layer to screen and adjusted the opacity.
I duplicated that layer, then used Fotomatic BW-Plus to desaturate. You can pick whichever settings work best for your image. Then set it on softlight, and adjust the opacity as needed. Then do a color balance adjustment layer, a levels adjustment layer, and lastly, a curves layer, trying to bring out the blues. Then copy merged, and paste as a new layer.
Now make a new layer, set to soft light, and put it just below the top layer. Use the color picker to find a nice light blue in your image, and flood fill. Put the top layer on overlay, soft light, or whatever works. Then play with the opacity of the soft light layer until you get something that brings out the blues but doesn't mess up the other colors. Once that's done, you can start thinking about your animation.
First thing to do is save the corrected image, so you don't lose it if you screw up. Then copy merged, and paste as a new image. Close the original now. Now on to the animation. The example is on a black background, so make a new layer, floodfill black, and send it to the bottom. Then resize the cap layer to about 50%, or whatever works for your image. Use the unsharp mask to sharpen gently. Move the cap to center bottom, or wherever you want it. Set some guides in case you inadvertantly move it and need to put it back.
It appears the animation starts with the cap rotated slightly right of center, like at about a 2 o'clock position, and mostly visible.
So, I'll duplicate the cap layer, hide the original, and use the rotate tool to move the copy.
Make sure All Layers is UNCHECKED. I went with 25 degrees, but you can use your own setting.
Then use the unsharp mask to gently sharpen, as you should always do when you rotate. Okay, now the fade. I think the easiest way is to make a hide all mask, then use a round brush to paint a white circle over the cap. It may take some experimentation with size and brush hardness, but you should be able to get something that hides the edges, but leaves most of the cap visible. I used a hardness of 85. Merge group and hide the layer.
Okay, now duplicate the original layer, move it to the top, and rotate it, say, 10 degrees right and sharpen.
Next, I made the brush a few pixels smaller and lowered the softness to 55, then painted my white circle with the brush center in exactly the same place on the cap as the first one. You can use a guide or just pick a spot on your icon and use the same spot for all layers. This made the visible area smaller, but still with the fuzzy edges. Merge group and hide again.
So, next layer. Duplicate the original again and move it to the top. This one won't require rotating, so just do the mask like before, but adjust the brush again. Then merge group and hide.
Duplicate the original, bring to top, but this time rotate it 10 degrees left and sharpen. Then make your mask, adjust your brush, and do the white circle again. Merge group and hide.
Last one, I think. Duplicate, bring to top, and rotate 25 degrees left, then sharpen. Do the mask thing again, adjusting the brush hardness. Merge group and hide again.
Okay, that part's done, but for the animation, so let's do the text. I always make vector text, but that's up to you.
I unhid one layer, so I could see where to put the text. Once your text is done, hide all the layers but the text and the bottom black layer. Then merge visible so the text is on the bottom layer, too.
Make the first icon layer visible. If you have alot of extra space, draw a square selection around the part you want to keep and crop to selection. This cuts down on file size.
Once you have that done, resize the image to icon size. Make sure resize all layers is checked.
Then use the unsharp mask on all the layers.
Hide all layers except the bottom layer and the first icon layer. Copy merged and launch Animation Shop. Right click on the white space and paste as new animation.
Then go back to PSP. Hide the first icon layer and make the next one visible, then copy merged again. Go back to Animation Shop, right click on the title bar of the animation and choose paste after current frame.
Continue this way until you copy all the icon layers. Then hide all the layers but the bottom one. Copy the bottom layer and paste it after the last animation frame.
Now adjust the frame rates. Select all frames, then control click on the last frame to deselect it. Right click on the animation and click on frame properties. I experimented and decided a duration of 17 looked best. Then deselect those frames and select the last frame. I used a duration of 50 for that frame.
When you're satisfied, optimize and save.
And finally...it's done! It should look something like this: