Make Your Own Animated MSN Messenger Display Pictures

To do this you need to create a 96x96 pixel animated GIF image. The procedure for making an animated MSN Display Picture is quite a bit more complicated than making a still display picture and you are less likely to already have the software necessary to produce an animated GIF image on your system.

I would recommend you get a copy of Paint Shop Pro from Jasc Software. An evaluation copy of the software is available to download and use completely free for thirty days.

Paint Shop Pro, a part of the Paint Shop family of digital imaging and photography products, is the most complete, easy-to-use software for creating professional digital imaging results. It includes an integrated learning system, so it is incredibly easy to learn and use. The bundled Animation Shop enables you to produce animations from still images.

Animated display pictures come in two styles: the cartoon style animated icons and icons where the icon switches between two or more different images. Both styles are created by linking a series of still images, called frames, together and depending on the frame rate can look like a moving image or a series of static images.

Ideally you want to keep your file sizes as small as possible to avoid delays with the Display Picture viewing with your chat buddies. Bold and simple graphics in the animated MSN Display Pictures, with large areas of flat colour in the frames work really well, because they result in small file sizes. Unless your pictures are extremely simple, you probably won't be able to fit many frames into your animated display picture.

When you have created your animated GIF file go to our How to Include Your Personal MSN Messenger Display Picture Page.