Macromedia FLASH has become so popular, I get tons of email on where one can get free Flash intros. Well, you have these options, you can visit www.macromedia.com and download the latest 30 day full trial version of FLASH. The help file has an excellent tutorial that takes you step by step through the basic concepts. Heck- in 30 days you will have enough time to learn the program, get a few paying gigs making intros, and then pay for the program from the cash you made during the initial 30 days! If you have any knowledge of Adobe Photoshop, you will learn Flash fast, as it reminds me of Photoshop with a time line. You set up many separate "layers" and objects move along a time line. Set up beginning and end points, and the program automates a "tween" between them, creating the animation. Very very cool. If all that is still a bit too much, there is always www.Flashiness.com and they have several free flash intros, graphics, images, etc... if you are a real beginner, you should learn how to make your own simple animated gifs. The banner at the very bottom of this page is an animated gif I made with Ulead gif animator.

Get Ulead Gif Animator Lite for FREE click here-Make your own gif Animations!

Ulead Gif Animator lets you take several .gif or .jpg images, and create a simple animation from them.  I make 3-7 images all the same size, and layer them with this program into one animated banner.  The lite version is free, but I suggest buying their full version, its worth the $39 for the animation wizard that comes with the complete version.

I really suggest visiting Macromedia and downloading FLASH for free and learning a new skill that could really make you a lot of money if you applied yourself. There's a lot of work on elance for Flash designers... what's elance you say? People can bid on web work and get jobs, so go on... learn FLASH if you like it so much, you'll find it easier than you think. Here are some crazy Halloween cartoons I made using Flash that are at JackOLantern.org - When you get there, make sure to click the link that says CANDY - it's my favorite.