I use Beneton Movie Gif for my anis. It's more like Windows movie maker than Photoshop, but the blur effect is pretty much the same. Its an easier format because you can import whole animations instead of each frame.
PM stands for Private Message. It's like email, but via accounts here. To get there you click on "Private messages" on the top right of the page or you can click on someone's username and go to "send a private message to [Zed]".