[Rhythm]

[color=#FFFFFF]I wrote this tutorial for all of you who wonder how people animate a shine into their sigs. Enjoy!

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Step one: Open up Photoshop. We're going to create a simple shine to use in our animation.

Creating a simple shine

• > Create a new PSD about 350x350pixels
  
  > Select the 'Rectangle Tool' or 'Rounded Rectangle Tool'
  
  
  > Create a very thin Rectangle and rotate it to about a 30 degree angle.
  (You can do this by clicking 'Free Transform' and hovering over the corner.)
  
  > Next you're going to want to make your rectangle bright, this will determine the outcome of your shine. Right click your Rectangle Layer and click 'Rasterize Layer', once you've done that click 'Blending Options'.
  
  
  > I'm going to make a simple shine here, so I'm going to select 'Color Overlay' in 'Blending Options' and I'm going to choose white. Then I'm going to select 'Outer Glow' with the color white with these settings.
  

> Delete the background layer and make the image transparent!

> Right click your Shine Layer in Layer Tabs then Rasterize the Layer again.

The final piece:

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Step two: Merging your text layer with shine.

Text

Create a new PSD on Photoshop and keep your shine in another open Tab. Make this PSD 600 pixel width and 200 pixel height. Do not make it transparent, add a background. Input what ever text you desire, as long as it fits into the PSD.

Go back to the Tab that has your shine then press CTRL + A then let go of just the A and then press C. This will copy your entire Shine. Go to the Tab with your text in it and paste it by pressing CTRL + V.

Merging

This is a very simple process. Make sure the shine is above the text then on your Layers tab, hover between the Shine and the Text layer and hold ALT. An arrow pointing down with a square to the right side will appear, just left click while still holding ALT.

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Step three: Creating the Animation.

• > Open up your Timeline by clicking Timeline which is under 'Window' on the top of PS. One you've clicked Timeline, click 'Create Video Timeline'
  
  > Once you're one your timeline, click the drop arrow to the left of your shine and click 'Transform'.
  
  
  > You will see a diamond, that represents where your shine will be during that time. This is called a 'Key frame', since that is the first Key frame, that will represent where your shine will start off. Drag your shine all the way to the left of the text so it's out of sight.
  
  > Move the timeline to the end and click the yellow diamond all the way to the left where it says Transform.
  
  
  > This will be your second Key frame, meaning the first one is where your shine starts, and the second one is where your shine ends. Seeing as how your shine starts all the way to the left, you'll most likely want it to end all the way to the right. So as soon as you click your second Key frame, you're going to want to drag your shine all the way to the right of the text, out of site.
  

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Step four:

Loop

• > To make sure the loop is not too fast, click on the three squares on the absolute bottom left of Photoshop. They'll look kind of like: [][][] (but small squares)
  
  > Scroll all the way to the right to your last frame and change the 0.03 (or whatever it's set to) to other and change it to 1.5 to 2 seconds.
  
  
  Saving
  
  Go to File and then press 'Save for Web'. On the bottom, where it says 'Looping Option', press Forever and then Save. Save Options in spoiler below.
  
  Spoiler:

  
  
  
  
  That's it. You're done! If you need any help, feel free to post here and I'll be more

[Infamy]

Thanks for the awesome tutorial.

Love, Infamy.