I have decided to give tutorial writing a try. I decided to start with something simple since I have never written one before LOL! Any resemblance to anyone else's tutorials is coincidental.

I made this banner using the awesome "Hot Hot Hot" tube by Ismael Rac

which you can purchase at his store HERE

you must have a license to use his art.

Supplies:

tube of choice

PaintShop Pro (I used PSP X2)

Plug ins: VisMan Instant Art - Wired

(freeware filter)

Starburst Animation by Patricia

which you can download at her blog HERE

Jasc Animation Shop3

Let's begin!

Open a new canvas 600 x 250

flood fill white.

apply Visman Instant Art - Wired with these settings:

84, 84, 54, 54, 4, 4, 0, 74

Now paste your tube as a new layer, and resize as desired

I resized mine at 50%

Move this tube over to the left, change the blend mode to Luminance Legacy

duplicate this layer and mirror it.

Go to Layers ---> merge ---> merge visible

Paste your tube again as a new layer and resize as needed

I resized mine at 80% this time.

For the border: add a new raster layer 

selections ---> select all, 

selections ---> modify ---> contract 6 pixels

selections ---> invert, flood fill the selected border white

do not deselect

selections ---> modify ---> contract 2 pixels

new raster layer, flood fill this selection black

select none.

Add your copyright information and a name, and any desired text.

For the name, I used the free font Monika which you can get HERE

Now, hide the merged background layer, and merge visible the top layers.

Crop your image, snap crop rectangle to merged opaque.

Now for the animation!

Open the Starburst animation in animation shop (AS)

In PSP hide the merged top layer and unhide the merged bottom layer

copy merged and paste as a new animation in AS

paste after current frame until you have 50 frames.

(I use the keyboard shortcut and hold Ctrl + Shift + L to do this faster)

on the starburst animation select all and copy,

then on your background select all, and paste into selected frame.

View animation to make sure you have it centered correctly.

Now go back to PSP, hide the bottom merged layers and unhide the top merged layers.

Copy merged and paste as a new animation in AS.

Ctrl + Shift + L until you have 50 frames. Select all and copy.

Go to your background that you pasted the starburst on, select all and paste into selected frame

Make sure you line it up so the border is around the edges where it is supposed to be.

View animation, and if you are happy with it, save as a gif file using default settings! 

I hope you enjoyed my first tut...and I hope I didn't ramble too much LOL

Any feedback is welcomed, and I would love to see your results!