Basic .Gif animation in PS CS4.

**Legacy Code** · March 1st, 2010 01:34 AM

Here is a quick tutorial to show some very basic animation using one image and some imagination.

I opened up a new document and i made it 800x1000 pix. I then filled it in black.
Then i opened up the image i wanted to animate and placed it on a new layer and named it Eggman 1. Then right clicked on the Eggman 1 layer and selected to duplicate the layer and named it Eggman 2

With the Eggman 2 layer selected i went to EDIT> TRANSFORM> FLIP VERTICAL.

Still with Eggman 2 , i went to EDIT>TRANSFORM> ROTATE 180.

Now i have a mirror image of Eggman, so i lined them both up the best i could , trying to match some body parts like the head and torso up.It varies from image to image so experiment and see what works

Next i went to WINDOW > ANIMATION and opened up the animation palette making sure i had the animation frame palette selected. You have two types of animation palette but i wanted to use the frame animation as it is better for basic animated gifs.If the Timeline palette opens up , just click on the drop down menu icon in the top right hand corner of the palette and select convert to frame animation.

I turned off the Eggman 2 layer and made sure Eggman 1 was selected in the first frame of the anmation.

I clicked on NEW FRAME in the animation palette (The small icon next to the rubbish bin in animation palette)And did exactly the same for Eggman 2 making sure i deselected Eggman 1.

Then i selected the frame rate , or the speed each frame would play at.I selected 0.5 seconds on both frames and made sure FOREVER was selected in the bottom left hand corner.

Press play and see how it works , If its cool you can maybe crop the image so it all fits nice.Add some text and effects ...its up to you. Once your happy save for web and devices as a .GIF and spam your way over teh interwebz

. Just make sure you select the first frame when you edit your animation as it will apply to all frames ( but click through them all to make sure)

I hope this was easy to follow and if you have any questions or i didnt explain anything well enough please feel free to ask what you want either by a PM or here.