Creating an Animated Pinwheel Icon in Photoshop CS2

We will be learning how to make an animated pinwheel using Adobe Photo shop CS2.

First, you will need to create a new document that is 100x100 pixels. Select a color you'd like to use and fill your document with it. I'm using a light blue for mine. Next I made a new layer on my Layers Palette and put on some random sparkles on in white. I'm most positive that I got these sparkles from H-G (Picture 1). You will need to define these into brushes if you'd like to use them (Picture 2).

Make another new layer in your Layers Palette and make sure your color is still white. Go to your Custom Shapes Tool and select the tool I have circled (Picture 3). Once you've selected the tool, stretch out the custom shape so you can't see the circle around it, like I have done in my example (Picture 4). Set your opacity at the top of the layers palette to change the pinwheel between 30-50% opacity. You can play around with it until you like it. Yours should look like how I have mine in my example (Picture 5).

Next, duplicate the Pinwheel layer you just made ONCE. Rotate the pinwheel so that it goes in between the first pinwheel lines. Now this is what your layer palette should look like so far (Picture 6). Create a new layer and add a grid brush, and set the opacity to round 41% at the top where you select your brush. You can play around with the opacity until you like how it looks. Make another layer and add any kind of text you want and any other things you may want to add to it. I just added my name, and rotated it and added some Blending Effects to it (Picture 7).

Now go to went to Windows -> Animation and opened up the animation box. In the Animation box there should be your icon. Now, take the eye off next to your Duplicated layer of the pinwheel. Hit the duplicated button in the Animation box at the bottom then remove the eye off the first pinwheel layer, and place it on the second pinwheel layer [the duplicated copy]. Lastly, set the speed to around 0.2 - 0.5 secs. Hit Play and now you are all done. When you save, select File-> Save as Web. Your finished document should look like mine (Picture 8).