How to Create Your Own Flash Background

Step 1 Create background SWF file with Adobe Flash Professional CS5.

Open Adobe Flash Professional CS5 to create a new file, go to "PROPERTIES > PROPERTIES > Size > Edit" in the properties panel on the right and set the stage size as "720*540". Click to "File > import > import to stage" to import background image then set the image size same as stage. Right click on image, select "convert to symbol" and type a symbol name to convert image to "Movie Clip". Please note that you need to type a instance name "background" in "PROPERTIES" on the right for this symbol. Otherwise, it will results in error when applying background. This is very important.

If you want to create animated background then you need to create animation layer for the background. You can double click on the background image and go to the inner layer, convert the inner component to "Movie Clip" symbol, name the layer as "animation" for your own future reference. Add keyframe to the last frame then click to "PROPERTIES > COLOR EFFECT", select style as "Alpha", set alpha amount as "10%" and click on enter. And then right click on timeline to create classic tween. Now, create another layer named "as" which you need to insert a keyframe and type the stop action script[ stop(); ] to let the movie stop at the last frame. After clicking "control > test movie" and check it is made as you want, you can export the .fla to .swf file. You may also need to save file as .fla for future editing.

Congratulations that you have finished "step 1", now you have moved a great step forward on finishing your background and just need the simple steps below to get the work perfectly done!

Step 2 Create JPEG image file.

This is an easy step for creating thumbnail image for your background in Photo Slideshow Maker. You can open Paint in windows or other image editing program to edit the background image file. Resize background image file as 80x60 pixels and save as JPEG file.

Step 3 Import background files to Photo Slideshow Maker

The last but not least important step is importing the .swf and .jpg file to Photo Slideshow Maker. If you are going to import background files to Photo Slideshow Maker Platinum, then you should put the background files under path as below
"C:\Program Files\AnvSoft\Photo Slideshow Maker Platinum\template\premium\templateEditor\material\background"

The .swf and .jpg files are needed to be renamed. If there are 16 backgrounds in this folder (as you can see the last file is named as "bg016"), then the new created background should be the NO.17 and both of the .swf and .jpg files should be named as "bg017".

After renaming, close folder and launch Template Editor in Photo Slideshow Maker Platinum, you will find your background under Background tab. Now, you can apply your new created background to custom slideshow theme as you like!

You can watch How to Import Component to review this step.