This tut will help you get the idea how to make the blinkie signature tags. Those cute little name tags you use in e mails or on web sites. This tut is different because it not only uses Picture It (all versions) but also you will need to use MS Paint, this program is a simple painting software, that every computer I have seen has come with. But it is possible that you don't have MS Paint. You can find this program by going to START/PROGRAMS/ACCESSORIES/PAINT.

First you need a small blank project that is about 100x50 pixel, at least that is the size I made mine, you can make it what ever size you want.

I filled the project with a solid color for this tut, you may make yours as fancy as you wish! I then added text (usually your name, but could be anything!!). I chose to fill the text with gradient colors, this too is up to you!

I then save it in WINDOWS BITMAP format, this is what format Paint uses best without loosing color quality.

Now you need to open MS Paint, usually just called Paint. Here is how you find it...

Click this at the bottom left of your screen

Now follow through these

And it will open to this

You need to open your saved name project by going to FILE/OPEN

When you work on this, you need to make the graphic bigger, so you can see what you are doing, when placing the "blinks" around the name. So click here

I chose 6x, but you can use the 8x if you want. This will make the name project very large and somewhat blurred, but that is OK, just as long as you can see where you are placing your square or dot. Next you will choose from the sqaure or dot and the size it will be for the paint brush. So click the paint brush

at the bottom of the above graphic, you will see the dot or square option and the size, click on each to see what size they are, you can move your cursor over to your graphic...dont click yet! But to see the size and shape

In paint, if you want to match your paint brush color to your text that is already on your graphic, you can click the eyedropper in the toolbox, then click the color in the graphic you want.

I always start in the left top corner with my "blink shapes", this way, if you need to adjust the size of your graphic to get the exact space for your shapes around your text. I start with one color in the corner. You can either leave a space between shapes or place them against each other, which ever you decide is fine. I am placing them against each other in this one. So I start in the corner

And work my way around the outside border. I alternate colors, by clicking on the color bar at the bottom

I work across the top and down the side. Once I get to the bottom, I see there is not enough room for another square

So, I make the graphic small again and then use my cursor to get the double headed arrow, and pull the lower line down one move, so that I have enough room for a complete square

Once I resized it, I then click the color matcher again, and click on the background, then paint the white strip of the added space. Then back to making my squares until I have went all the way around the border

Now I save the new painted graphic still as a bitmap, Picture It will use bitmaps.

You will now repaint your graphic, changing the red squares for the white and the white for the red. If this gets confusing, you can paint either the red or white a 3rd color, just to show where you stopped and the placement of your next square.

And you go all the way around, again. Making the 2nd graphic you will use in Picture It! Animation Flipbook. Again saving as a bitmap. At any time if you make a mistake you can use the UNDO button at the top

The undo button will only go back 3 steps.

Once you have your 2 graphics, you need to go back to Picture It! and open them into flipbook animation. Follow the steps in the animation. Make sure you choose the biggest size for your graphic, since it is so small anyways! And for speed, I find that when you are using just the 2 graphics, you will need to set the speed very quick, so that it fools the eye into seeing them move, so I did mine in 0.03 speed. You can check it then go back and either make it faster or slower as you wish. And there you have your blinkie name tags!

Here are some others I made

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