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[Brice]

I'm currently using Graphics Gale to do some retro-style sprites, and I wanted to see: does anyone have any techniques (using this program or another) for easily making sure sprites are lined up correctly?

You never want to have your sprite bouncing around by 1 or 2 pixels, but it's difficult to get it lined up perfectly.

Still a beginner in Gale so I wouldn't be surprised if there was some feature in there to do it.

Thanks!

[Update: Hold your horses everyone: I just discovered "Frames" in Gale.  Exploring...]

[JoGribbs]

The box selection cursor in Gale has lines going vertical and horizontal. Use those to check how sprites are aligned.

[Konidias]

Also onion skin helps you to line things up and also helps you to animate from a base.

[Brice]

I've been trying to figure out what that does...any tips? 

[JaJitsu]

i always just make a giant checkerboard pattern.

[Conker534]

I use Game Makers sprite editor to do all my stuff. VERY helpful, imo.

[Konidias]

I've been trying to figure out what that does...any tips? 

Say you have one frame which is a character idle animation.... You make a new frame, set both frames to have transparency enabled (click the "..." next to the frame and check Transparent), and then you go up to the Onion Skin icon (neon green icon near the magnifier icon) click that and you can click the arrow next to it to choose what frame to use as the onion skin.

So once you turn this on, you can work on your blank frame while seeing an overlay of your previous or next frame. It lets you trace over your previous frame to make the next one. Super useful when animating inbetweens and even key poses.