Animated Greeting Card

To work this Tutorial you will need: Paint Shop Pro, and a Tube of your choice. You may if you desire, use Super Blade Pro as an optional extra, but it is not essential to the working of this tutorial.

Lets get started:

Open the tube you plan on using to decorate your card and select a foreground and background colour from it, or select the main colour you wish to use and then select a paler shade of it as contrast.

Open a new image 400x400 Transparent, name and save using the .jsl extension, that way if you need to leave off while editing your vectors you will be able to continue when you return to them.
Don't forget to save often.

Select your preset shapes tool, rectangle, vector and antialias checked, with your background colour set to your main shade and your foreground colour null, draw out a rectangle for your envelope, size 260x170.
Objects/Align/Horiz, centre in canvas, Selections/From Vector Object, Selections/Save to Alpha Channel, name selection as front and click OK.
Convert to raster and rename layer "envelope front".
Add a new vector layer. Set your foreground colour to your main colour and your background to your contrast, select your pre set shapes tool rounded rectangle, Antialias and Vector checked, line width 10.
Hold down shift key and draw out a rounded square the same width as your envelope
Objects/Align/Horiz, centre in canvas.
Image/Rotate, right, free 45, all layers unchecked.
Using the handles at either side, adjust the width to fit your envelope, then using the handle at the bottom adjust the height of the envelope flap as desired.
It may help you to line things up if you move this layer under your "envelope front" layer.

once you have it the way you want it, make sure your centre node is in line with the top of your envelope front, name this layer "envelope inside", then duplicate this layer twice, naming the first copy "envelope flap" and the second copy "template".

In your layer palette go to your "envelope flap" layer, click the little + to expand it and select the rounded rectangle sublayer, right click and select properties, right click on the background colour and change it to be the same as the foreground colour.

Go to your "template layer", once again click the + to expand the layer select rounded rectangle sublayer then take your object selector tool and click node edit.
Holding down your shift key, click on each of the bottom nodes, you will see them both selected, move one upwards a bit and you will see they both move together,

click off the canvas when you have it the depth you want it, then using the same two nodes again this time one at a time, click on one of the nodes and rotate the inner handle so as it is in line horizontally, then push the handle into the node it originates from, repeat this with the other node.
Now once again using the same two nodes, pull them apart from each other a little.

Once you are happy with what you have, go Selections/From Vector Object, Selections/Modify/Contract by 10, Selections/Save to Alpha Channel, name this selection template and click OK. Deslect. You can now delete the template layer.

Select your envelope front layer, Selections/Load from Alpha Channel, select your template selection and hit delete or click the scissors, your envelope should now have the piece where you put the letter in cut out of it. Deselect.

Using the Draw tool, vector and antialias checked, line size 2, single line, foreground set to contrast colour, background null, draw a line from the lower left corner to the corner of the angle on the left of the section you just deleted, repeat with the right side, when you are happy with it convert to raster, and name it "lines".Effects/Blur/Guassian Blur, "1", if the lines have gone over a little don't worry, select the envelope front layer selections/select all, selections/Float, Selections/invert, then make sure you are on the "lines" layer and hit delete or click the scissors. Deselect.
Turn off all except these two layers and merge visible renaming this layer as "envelope front".

Convert all remaining vector layers to raster and make sure they appear in your layer palette in this order.
"envelope flap"
"envelope front"
"envelope inside"
"Layer1", you can delete this layer if you wish or you may like to floodfill it temporarily with a different colour so that you can see better what you are doing.

Select your "envelope flap" layer and apply the following drop shadow
H+V=2, O=40, B=10, colour=Black, then in your layer palette ensuring you are still on the "envelope flap layer", Selections/Load from Alpha channel, select your "front" selection, Selections/Invert and hit delete or click on the scissors, this will do away with the upper portion of the flap that we don't need and it will not leave any drop shadow showing above the flap or outside the envelope. Deselect.

Select your "envelope inside" layer, Add a new vector layer, set your foreground to null and your back ground to white, select your preset shapes tool rectangle, with antialias and vector checked and draw out a rectangle slightly smaller than your envelope, rename this layer "card".
Selections/From Vector Object, Selections/Modify/Contract by 8 add a new raster layer and floodfill the selection with the colour you are using as a contrast, deselect, rename this layer "card2".

Effects/Geometric Effects/Wave and apply with these settings, both amplitudes=1 both Wavelengths=20.
Turn off visibility on all layers except "card" and "card2", merge visible these two layers and rename card.
Using your magic wand click in the white border area of the card and apply your favourite blade pro preset or fill with a lovely gradient of your choice, it need not be the right colour, if you want it to match your main colour you can colourise it using the hue and sats figures of your main or desired colour. Deselect.

Add a new raster layer, name it "tube" and apply your tube to your card, you may need to resize it, then add a drop shadow using the settings as before, they should still be there.
Add a new raster layer, name it "text"apply whatever text you want, you can use your blade pro preset or gradient and colourise to match your border if you wish it's up to you, then add the same drop shadow.
Merge visible your "card", "tube" and "text" layers and rename "card".

Turn off visibility on all layers except "envelope inside" layer, add a new raster layer and apply your tube, centre top just inside the border area on your contrast colour, when happy with the tube size and position edit copy, edit paste as new selection and paste this as a selection lower down to the right, then one again paste another in the similar position over to the left, so that your envelope appears to have a printed lining.
Apply the same drop shadow then merge these two layers visible and rename "envelope inside".

OK, that's the hard work all out of the way, now we have to prepare this as a multilayered image ready for animation, if you still have Layer1 sitting in your layer palette, you should delete it now.

Your layers should appear in your layer palette like this:

Turn off visibility on "envelope inside" layer and "card layer".
Duplicate "envelope front" layer and turn off original, select "copy of envelope front" you should just have this and "envelope flap" visible, merge visible and rename to "frame1", send or drag this layer to the bottom of the layer palette and turn off visibility on this layer.

*Turn on "envelope inside" and "envelope front" and duplicate each of these layers 4 times,
turn off 4 each of these layers so that there is only one of each layer showing.
Select your card layer Selections/Select All, now holding down the shift key click the up arrow 25 times, deselect, duplicate the layer and turn off the duplicate
merge visible one each of three layers and rename as "frame 2", send or drag this down to be above frame 1 layer.*

Repeat this last instruction from * to * naming them frames 3, 4, 5 and 6 respectively until your card reaches the top of the envelope flap. (For me it was 6 frames in total).
make sure all your frames are stacked in numerical order from bottom up 1-6 and have the visibility turned on, save.

File/Jasc Software/Launch Animation Shop.
Once animation shop opens, File/Browse to the folder you saved you file in and double click to open it.
Edit/Select All. Animation/Frame Properties, change display time to 40 and click OK.
Edit/Select none.
Click on frame 1 to select it, Animation/Frame Properties, change display time in this frame to 65, then click on the last frame to select it, Animation/Frame Properties and change this one to 100.
Edit/Select All. Animation/Animation properties, on the looping tab, check play it, then type in "1" time.
Click crop, then options, click surround the opaque area, click OK, then click crop.
Go to View/Animation so you can see what it will play like, if you are happy with it, save it and name it.

Below are screen shots of the settings I used for the animation optimisation, feel free to adjust the slider on the first shot depending whether you want a smaller file or a better quality image.

 

I do hope you have enjoyed working this tutorial as much as I did writing it.

Results of my Testers

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Butterfly tile used for this page courtesy of backgroundsbytrishsdreams