Yesterday I wrote about a very inexpensive way to create professional looking banners and headers using the FREE Xheader program. Today, I wanted to inform you an inexpensive way to kick it up a notch and save you even more money in the process.

Animated Gif Banners, logo’s, image or headers created by you!

Using the Xheader program it is extremely easy to create "Frames" that can turn into motion using the animation program from Corel, Animation Shop 3. Animation Shop 3 is very inexpensive (about $30) and has a free 30 day trial. The cost of the program is about what you would pay for ONE basic animated Gif banner if you had somebody make one for you, so I think it’s worth the time and $ if you use animated banners directly on your site or advertise your site with animated banners.

Using Xheader, start with a Blank Header and size it to what you want your banner to be. (It may not "look" perfect in Xheader when creating a wide banner like 300×300, but keep in mind this program is made for creating header banners). Create as you wish, but for each "frame" you want to play out, simply click Save jpg and save the file as f1 or whatever you would like so it can go in order. Keep adding to your image etc.

Your first saved image will be what people see first, second saved image will be what people see second and so on.

The following I created in under 5 minutes. This is 8 total "frames" or saved images. Are the images amazing? No, but they look pretty good and it was Super Easy and Free to make!

Like I said, even if you only create 2 animated gif banners, the $30 buck’s it cost for Animation Shop 3 is worth it IMO and Xheader is Free.

Animation Shop is pretty darn easy. I only used it for a little bit and had no issues getting my first banner created. You can make your banner right in Animation Shop also, but I just created the images with Xheader.

So if you have your images created already, simply click File and then Animation Wizard. I just click Next all the way up to the screen to Add Image. I add all the images I created for the specific banner and click Next, then Finish.

This is where I set the "speed" for the animated gif. I think the default is 100, which is pretty quick. By clicking on the specific frame you want to adjust, then right click and select Frame Properties and adjust the speed. The speed for the image above is 100 for the first 7 frames and the last frame at 200. Just play around until your happy.

To "view" the Gif in action, the second to the last button on top of the screen is View Animation. Just click it and it plays.

If you are happy, click File then Save As. It should default to save as a Gif. I just click through from that point and save it.

Once your done, then upload the saved gif to your hosting and place it where you want it.

Animated Gif Banners cheap and so easy! Please keep in mind the ones I created are Very Basic. With a little more effort, the sky is the limit on how nice they can look.